Old Glory: Lost Fleet of the Republic
by A Lover of Nature
Summary: The Republic fleet tasked with destroying the Sith controlled Star Forge succeeds in its mission but fails to escape the explosion produced by the ancient station's collision with its star. Admiral Dodonna orders her ships to attempt an uncalculated hyperspace jump sending them nearly four thousand years forwards into the future. Kotor/Sequel Crossover. Old Glory Episode 1.
1. Past is Prologue

**_A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…_**

 ** _Old Glory Episode 1_**

 ** _Lost Fleet of the Republic  
_**

 _S_

 _Four thousand years before the_

 _rise of the Galactic Empire the_

 _Old Republic launches a daring_

 _attack against the STAR FORGE_

 _in a desperate attempt to halt_

 _the Sith war of conquest._

 _S_

 _The deposed Dark Lord REVAN_

 _Embracing his new identity as_

 _Jedi Padawan DANE AVERY_

 _redeems rogue Jedi BASTILA SHAN_

 _and slays DARTH MALAK his former_

 _apprentice turned Sith Master._

 _S_

 _The breakthrough of several_

 _fighter squadrons through the_

 _Sith defensive perimeter paves_

 _the way for the rest of the fleet to_

 _launch its final assault against_

 _the ancient space station…_

 _S_

* * *

 **Unknown System - Republic Flagship Megalodon**

The impact of a dozen green lasers burned through the weakened shields and armour of the ancient space station, producing brilliant explosions across a section of a tower-like structure as it buckled and shattered under the weight of overwhelming firepower. A final flash of light heralded this end when it came; the Star Forge quickly descending closer to its home star than in any point of its twenty thousand years of existence.

"Admiral Dodonna, we've hit their main orbital stabilizers!" announced one the flagship's captain, struggling to be heard, amid the cheers of the bridge command staff.

The admiral released a breath she'd held these past few seconds. Despite the Republic's complete lack of information on the ancient space station, despite the location of its orbital stabilizers remaining mere educated guesswork until the very moment of their destruction, despite everything, they'd won! This attack had been their last realistic hope to halt the Sith advance, and boy did its payoff.

Forn Dodonna quickly pushed aside her sense of profound relief and re-centred her thoughts on the responsibilities of the fleet commander. "Everyone, pull back, I don't want to lose any more ships when that space station goes down," she ordered, bringing the momentary lapse on the bridge to an end as the officers and crewmembers returned to their tasks.

By the book professionalism was as the proverbial call sign of admiral Dodonna's command and the reason why she, unlike most of Revan's admirals, chose to stick with the Republic at the onset of the Civil War. Her orange dark uniform and many distinguished service medals didn't have any obvious smears or imperfections, with the fleet admiral's hat, likewise concealing her carefully arranged locks of brown hair in the cause of the navy's regulatory modesty of appearance as well as simple practicality.

Nevertheless, even professionalism had its limits; the admiral turned to face the small faded green alien to her right and spoke with barely contained excitement, "We did it Master Vandar, the Sith are routed and the Star Forge destroyed!"

The Jedi gazed at the falling space station and the flashes of battle visible from the viewport, but seemed more resigned than excited at the prospect of victory, "But at what cost admiral, so many ships lost… where is the Ebon Hawk and her crew?"

Dodonna could not find a positive answer to this question, for the cost had been great indeed; almost a third of the fleet destroyed and more than a third reported serious damage. The situation was even worse for the Jedi Master, who'd not only lost most of his order in the war, most recently in the destruction of the Dantooine Jedi Enclave, but also sent those few surviving knights under his command to the infiltration mission. No communications were received from the Ebon Hawk since it landed on the station.

Could she risk the crew on-board her command vessel, let alone the fleet in a search for the missing freighter? The decision to send that bizarre combination of Jedi and misfits to what amounted to a textbook suicide mission weighed heavily on her conscious, but did she have the right to ask more from the brave men and women assigned to her fleet when they had already risked so much?

A glancing blow from a Sith Interdictor Cruiser well out of the effective firing range cut off this line of thought before it could run its course. "Ma'am, several Sith vessels are detaching from the main fleet, their intention appears to be a death or glory attack run," announced a member of the command staff.

For the first time in this battle, the admiral felt genuine anger; how dare these Sith prolong the agony of combat even a moment longer than necessary? The battle was over, they had lost, and any further hostilities would not change the strategic results of this engagement.

"It is too late to escape admiral, the Sith have cut us off," said Vandar, surprising the military professional with his quick grasp of the situation.

The admiral nodded, for the Jedi master was correct in his assessment; their fleet could not push forward, or if necessary, jump to hyperspace with enemy ships attacking to their front, their routed compatriots still obstructing the flanks, and the impending demise of the Star Forge to the rear.

With battle once again forced upon her, the Admiral opened the fleet-wide communications channel and spoke to all sixteen capital ships in her assault group and the rest of the fleet still in combat with the Sith defensive perimeter.

"Assault Group - clear out those incoming Sith ships, I want all our navicomputers to link up and calculate an emergency jump to hyperspace in the event we can't escape in time using sublight speed. The rest of the fleet - continue operating in your current command groups. Pursue the Sith fleet and prevent any more of their ships from re-joining the battle, but do not engage them in the projected blast radius of the Star Forge. Fleet command out."

* * *

 **Unknown System - Star Forge**

The Sith warrior grasped as the two lightsabres slipped through her defences and delivered their mortal blows. Dane Avery did not have the willingness or the time to relish in the death of an enemy, for despite the fall of her master and the death of hundreds of their numbers, the Sith remained dogged in their pursuit of the intruders in their midst. Two Sith troopers immediately attacked the Jedi with their Vibroblades, but one was quickly beheaded by a strike from Dane's blue light sabre, while the other fell before his crimson, 'borrowed' from a defeated opponent when the Jedi's original yellow sabre was destroyed.

With all three immediate opponents vanquished, the way forward was now open. A simple military code hastily reprogramed into the locking mechanism opened the blast door, revealing two more lightsabre wielding warriors. One was an aged man of colour, while the other was a young woman of an unnaturally pale complexion that had not yet fully recovered from the physical effects of the Dark Side.

Bastila quickly emerged from her battle meditation once she sensed the other's return. "Re…Dane, you are alive, so, it is done? Is it over?" she asked, grasping at the hope that maybe with Malak's end and her assistance to the Republic's fleet in its hour of need a semblance of her former self could be redeemed. The blue lightsabre now in Dane's possession and the many Republic soldiers who had fallen to her battle meditation were both clear reminders that her journey to the Dark Side hadn't been without consequence.

Dane nodded, bringing his arms around Bastila in a reassuring embrace, "Yes, Malak is dead, it is over."

A distant but clearly felt explosion proved a useful reminder of their situation, "I hate to break up your reunion lovebirds, but I do not much like the idea of going down with this station," said Jolee Bindo, as always, unable to resist a wisecrack even in the most desperate of situations.

Bastila glanced at the various blast doors and picked out the one to the right of their group "That's the escape elevator to the hanger. It is locked down from the other side to prevent easy access to this level, but it should work from our end."

A short conflict between Dane's skill and the elevator's security systems ended with a rapid descent to the hanger bay. Just as the platform reached its destination, the power systems suddenly cut off, forcing the three Jedi to hack their way through the door. With this final obstacle to their escape gone, the chaos taking shape in the hanger bay became obvious; Sith soldiers and Dark Jedi where rushing to their various shuttles in a desperate attempt to escape the destruction of the station, but there were not enough of these to be had. Several units of the once united army even fought one another to defend or seize the various transports.

The Ebon Hawk, a Dynamic class freighter commandeered by Dane, Carth, and Canderous during their escape from Taris, was also a target for the fleeing soldiers and its crew fought tenaciously to protect it behind a hastily assembled barricade of debris and enemy corpses. The bodies of several Jedi Knights lay scattered and motionless, cut down by the sheer weight of numbers of their opponents. Several shots signalled the arrival of ever more Sith troopers in the hanger bay, forcing the trio into a fighting retreat; each working hard to deflect the seemingly endless gale of blasts coming their way.

A second explosion, much more violent than the last brought an entire section of the Star Forge walls crashing down on the narrow catwalk, but just before they could cut off the trio's only means of escape, Bindo managed to grab hold of the largest and most dangerous piece of debris and suspend it in mid-air with the force. Bastila soon supported Jolee's efforts by taking on the incoming blaster bolts with her double-edged red lightsabre. "Dane, go on! I will cover you!" said Bastila, but he seemed to hesitate, distrusting her intentions. Once their eyes locked, and Dane saw no argument would convince Bastila to retreat first, he reluctantly acquiesced and ran the short distance to the Ebon Hawk.

"Jolee, go, I will follow you," said Bastila, but the older and more experienced Jedi was not easily fooled; he knew that she knew that whoever stayed behind last would be hard-pressed to hold off the hundreds of barking Sith rifles.

"Kid, you have done enough redeeming for one day. I am an old man, and you have so much left to live for," he said, and with a supreme effort, pushed Bastila towards the Ebon Hawk.

Dane helped Bastila to her feet and the two Jedi brought their command of the force to bear against the debris in an attempt to give Jolee a chance to cross. The latter ceased his efforts and seemed about to reach out for his lightsabre when the blaster bolt hit his back. Two more rounds found their mark, and before long, the Jedi fell and did not rise again.

"No!" Shouted Dane and moved to try to rescue his compatriot. Bastila saw the incoming blasts and pulled Dane aside behind the makeshift barricade, letting the debris fall on top of the hapless Sith.

"He's dead, Revan, we have to get out of here now!" shouted Canderous as he and Mission got the rest of the crew on-board. Dane and Bastila likewise exploited the fall of the debris to emerge from cover and board their ship as it took off from the doomed station.

* * *

 **Unknown System - Republic Flagship Megalodon**

"Attention Republic Fleet, this is captain Stazer of the Sith Warship Indomitable, admiral Gerard has been removed from command, and consequently, this fleet will cease combat operations against your forces in return for a general ceasefire in this system, "said the voice of the not quite so crazy opponent. In other words, the Sith got rid of the rabid dog in their midst and now wanted to bugger off without fear of a stab in the back.

Despite her by no means small desire to see the murderers, traitors, and thieves that made up the so-called Sith Empire pay for their transgressions, there was such a thing as glory, but first there was duty. The ships of the Star Forge assault group needed to retreat just as badly as the Sith did, even more so, since her ships where now closest to the predicted blast radius of the station once it hit the local star.

"Captain Stazer, the Republic fleet accepts these terms; our forces will not impede your retreat, so long as you do not hazard our own withdrawal, over and out. All ships of the assault group engage your ion engines in full emergency speed!

"Ma'am, the Ebon Hawk is hailing us, they've cleared the Star Forge and are on their way, Darth Malak is dead!" announced the communications officer.

"Open a channel to Red Squadron and after that, to the Ebon Hawk!" Ordered the admiral and spoke to the squadron first. "Red Leader, send two fighters to cover the Ebon Hawk, I don't want any of those stranded Sith fighters getting any funny ideas."

"Copy that Megalodon, Red 6, Red 5, break formation and cover the freighter on grid 230," confirmed the squadron leader.

The communications officer quickly changed frequencies and hailed the Ebon Hawk, "Carth, you made it!"

"We could not let you start the victory party without us admiral," answered Captain…no, Group Captain Onasi with a chuckle.

Dodonna sighed with relief; at least she did not lose one of the more promising surviving officers in the Republic Navy today. "I am sending an honour guard to escort you in; you'll be getting a hero's welcome when we get back home."

"Ma'am, the Star Forge is about to blow, we won't clear the explosion in time!" Shouted the Megalodon's captain.

'Blast and bother!' thought the admiral; she really did not want to attempt a fleet wide jump to hyperspace with such a cataclysmic event interfering with the accuracy of the calculations. The first lesson any ship captain learned was that strange, often terrible things happened when you screwed around with Hyperspace, but the fleet had no other choice.

"Carth, link in your navicomputer to the fleet's network, we are going to execute an emergency jump to hyperspace!"

Before Carth even confirmed he had done so, Dodonna opened a fleet-wide channel "All ships in the Assault Group, confirm coordinates and engage your hyperdrives in 10 secs. the rest of the fleet is to remain outside the blast zone and obey the orders of Vice-Admiral Cede." A few seconds after this command, more than half of the surviving ships in the Republic fleet disappeared from normal space. An almost nova-like explosion soon followed but hit only debris, a few Sith fighters, and empty space.

The soldiers that remained in the unknown system that would be later named Lehon would never again see the ships of the Assault Group in their lifetimes. Even decades later, when they'd turned old and grey, their thoughts would often return to their missing comrades, hoping against hope that they would turn up one day, perhaps comfortably settled on some unclaimed lush world in the unknown regions. In later years, history would come to refer to this detachment as _**The**_ ** _Lost Fleet of the Republic_**.

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur - Last edited on the 29/01/20:** This Star Wars Sequel Trilogy – Knights of the Old Republic crossover is mostly a product of my exposure to two Star Wars adventures, one I know and adore, and the other I was surprised to discover I now partially enjoy, despite all of its flaws. I changed the chapter titles and order as a part of a general plan to clear up this story, along with some spelling and wording changes.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	2. Chapter 1: Don't Mess With Hyperspace

**Crait System - First Order Flagship Supremacy**

The blinding flash of light caused by the rebel's proverbial kick below the belt to a thousand generations of naval strategy rapidly settled down to a general cataclysmic inferno that reminded Edrison Peavey of the Battle of Endor. Moreover, just like the Battle of Endor, Peavey was half-conscious, face down on the command deck, and his nose was bleeding.

Regretfully, he could not say the same about General Hux, who seemed unfazed and undamaged by the mutilation of the First Order's flagship. Indeed, Hux junior sounded quite focused on the dubious task of screaming at Peavey's command staff, as if all the general's bellowing would make what was left of the captain's men reconnect the Supremacy back together again.

A few moments, or was it minutes later, a member of the command staff helped her captain get off his face, reminding the Imperial veteran that men were not the clear majority of the officer class like they used to be. With his balance somewhat regained, Peavey turned to the rest of his command staff, and noted that Junior was no longer present on the bridge.

"Lieutenant, where is General Hux?"

The officer removed a medpack from a first aid kit and did what she could to heal her superior's wounds as she answered his question, "General Hux left three minutes ago to evacuate the Supreme Leader from his chambers."

Peavey nodded; at least Junior knew his priorities, every now and then. "Damage report", he ordered, assuming the damage control officer was not dead or unconscious.

Evidently, he assumed wrong, for the same female officer who'd tended his wounds now removed the literally spineless body of the damage control officer from his computer station and took charge of the situation. "Sir, the damage-control systems are reporting minor damage to the right wing, major damage to the mid-section and…nothing from the left wing."

The captain did not show any obvious facial expression, but inwardly he was cursing like a sailor. If the damage-control systems where not reporting anything from the left wing…chances where he did not have a left wing anymore.

"All hands, this is the captain speaking; abandon ship, repeat, abandon ship. The command staff will reconvene on command shuttle 65, captain Peavey out." declared the captain, as he initiated a system wide purge of all the supremacy's computers, least one or more of its databanks fall to the hands of an aspiring scavenger at some point in the future.

Strange shapes suddenly appeared on the Supremacy's powerful hyperspace sensor screen, miraculously still operational and attempting to track the rebel flagship that had just initiated a jump through its hull. Ever the professional, the captain turned to face the screen, but was soon distracted by his personal communicator. "Captain Peavey speaking", he answered, more out of habit, since his tone of voice was not civil.

"This is Supreme Leader Ren, Supreme Leader Snoke is dead, and I am taking personal command of the First Order as of its moment. Admiral Peavey, you are to relocate to the Harbinger and assume command of the fleet, Supreme Leader Ren out".

Supreme leader Ren?! Who did that rebel spawned upstart think he is?! Then again, Captain Peavey liked the sound of Admiral Peavey, and if that meant he would finally share rank with Junior, so much the better. It was about time the Old Guard got the recognition it so rightly deserved, instead of the contempt the new blood felt for the former leaders of the 'defeated' Empire. "Order understood, Supreme Leader, Admiral Peavey out."

By the time the newly appointed admiral remembered the earlier phenomena on the sensor screen, the power systems on-board the supremacy breathed their last, and Peavey judged that it was well past time to get the hell off the glorified shipwreck. Besides, the first lesson any ship captain learned was that strange, often terrible things happened when you screwed around with Hyperspace. Chances where this phenomenon was just some bizarre glitch, for how could the fleet's situation possibly turn from terrible to worse?

* * *

 **Crait System – Republic Flagship Megalodon**

The expected two-week journey back to the Jedha Outpost turned to four, and then those four turned to eight. Technical examinations of the Hyperspace coordinates and the potential changes to sub-space introduced by the Star Forge's explosion revealed that the final input received by the navicomputers was complete and utter bollocks. In other words, unless some idiot was crazy enough to blow up a ship while attempting to enter Hyperspace….

"Admiral, the fleet is coming out of Hyperspace!" announced the navigation officer officially ending the 60-day long odyssey to cheers louder those expressed at the destruction the Star Forge. The admiral could scarcely believe her ears, who, or what, could have been desperate enough to break the first lesson? Do not screw around with Hyperspace.

Rather than look a gift Cannok in the mouth for stolen components you-could-not-possibly-live-without-or-replace-in-the-forseeable-future, Dodonna decided to make the best of the miracle, "All ships, report in."

After several seconds, it became apparent that all the Assault Group's ships were present not counting three notable exceptions. "Admiral, we can't raise the Ebon Hawk and its escorts on any channel. We also can't raise anything beyond short range; something is interfering with communications".

The admiral nodded her comprehension, "Sensors what do you see?"

The Sensor operators seemed hard at work trying to make heads or tails of the readings they were receiving; whatever had shot down long range communications was playing just as much havoc with every sensor in the fleet. Finally, after a landslide of maybes and excuses, Jedi Master Vandar of all people turned around and said "Admiral, I sense a small ship on a collision course with our vessel."

The admiral spoke the necessary orders, but there really was no need; ever since the Jedi Council's warnings regarding the Mandalorian Wars went unheeded by the galaxy, no sane Republic officer dared question the premonitions of a Jedi Master. The helmsmen reacted immediately, preforming complete 180 evasive manoeuvre so bold, it would have seen him off to prison had he been caught doing it in Coruscant's congested space lanes. A strong creaking noise hinted that while the Republic's flagship hadn't smashed into the object, it hadn't entirely missed it ether.

"Ma'am, signature confirmed, the ship is some sort of light freighter, but I can't make out its exact proportions. It has to be the Ebon Hawk, I mean, what are the chances of some other light freighter showing up near our fleet?" asked the sensors officer.

The admiral silently agreed, for the chances of some other ship of that type just turning up near the fleet as it left Hyperspace where extremely unlikely, then again, if this was the Ebon Hawk, then where was its fighter escort? Dodonna decided to turn once again to the source of wisdom that had saved her command from a potentially tragic collusion.

The Jedi closed his eyes and seemed to ponder the matter for several moments. His eyes opened, and though usually expressionless, they could not conceal his confusion, "difficult, very difficult, energy signatures close to this ship's hull I can observe, but diminished my ability to reach out through the force appears to be…my apologize admiral, in a moment of uncertainty, I slipped into my people's dialect, it will not happen again." said the Jedi, who preferred to keep his manner of conversation as clear as possible while serving in the capacity of Jedi advisor to the fleet.

With the intelligence picture unchanged, the admiral made her decision; she would work on the assumption that the freighter was indeed the Ebon Hawk. Maybe the freighter and its escort suffered some sort of complication that prevented it from reporting in? "Captain, bring the ship in and take the necessary precautions, I will meet your security team in the hanger."

With that, the admiral left her seat, walked towards the elevator, and descended to the hanger. Once there, she joined the Marines and the operations officer as the tractor beam brought the ship in. The first reaction of the republic force present was to cringe at the sight of the badly mauled freighter, no doubt buggered by their ship's untimely intervention.

The second reaction was a startling realization that despite the difficulty in making out defining class characteristics because of all the mess, the freighter clearly did not belong to the Dynamic Class, or to any known ship manufacturer the admiral knew about, and she knew a fair number thank you very much. The third reaction was a mixture of puzzlement and preparation for the worse as what appeared to be the single crewmember of the freighter popped out through an emergency hatch.

"Get me a protocol droid down here ASAP," said the admiral, who could not even begin to understand a single word spoken by their unintended guest.

"Ma'am…" started the operations officer returning his pistol to his holster satisfied the alien was angry, but not quite yet homicidal. "My Wookie might be a little rusty, but I do believe what this guy's saying is something along the lines of 'who the hell are you people, and what have you done to the Falcon?'"

* * *

 **Crait System – The Ebon Hawk**

"Red 5, this is Captain Onasi from the Ebon Hawk, are you still with us?"

"I am with you, old fruit, but I left my stomach behind," answered the pilot.

Carth chuckled, " Two months of emergency rations will do that to you."

"Aye, Aye sir, that's what they are here for; they never end, no matter how much we might wish they would."

"We are alive," answered Carth, "That's what counts, though I won't trust a navicomputer ever again."

"Ebon Hawk, your instruments have more range than ours, have you seen or heard anything from the fleet?"

"Negative, Red 5, comms are quiet, and our sensors are as buzzed as yours… wait, now detecting unknown vessel on short range sensors, possibly some type of shuttle craft."

"Roger, I see it too, it appears to be dead in space, shall we move to intercept?"

"Negative, Red 6, Ebon Hawk is better equipped to investigate, cover our six, we are going in, over and out." Carth got out of his seat in the cockpit, leaving flight control in auto and comms in Mission's capable hands. He'd once had serious doubts about the young twi'lek back when they first met way on Taris, but she'd since grown on him, particularly after the single-handed rescue of the Ebon Hawk's crew from the Leviathan's prison cells.

The plan was for HK-47, their resident assassin droid, to launch from the Ebon Hawk using one of the Mandalorian's jet packs, board the ship, and facilitate the initial communications with any survivors or eliminate hostiles, if they initiated combat. Canderous really wanted to go and stretch out his legs somewhere preferably not on the Ebon Hawk, but it was quickly decided that the synthetic killing machine was bad enough on its own, making the addition of their organic one more likely to panic anyone on the shuttle.

"Agitated Statement: One female meatbag on-board, unconscious due to sudden difficulties in maintaining that disgusting process you meatbags refer to as breathing, ohh master, may I put this creature out of its misery? I cannot bear to remain with this oxygen dispenser you so crudely installed in place of my flamethrower module even one moment longer!"

Carth had no idea how Dane could put up with that maniacal bucket of bolts, but then again, it hadn't killed anyone it was not supposed to on his watch, key words being had not, and on his watch. Dane chuckled a bit, as if he were talking to a child begging for a treat, "No, you can't Little H, use the air canister to stabilize her condition, we are coming in."

The droid actually seemed to sigh, in what seemed to amount to a genuine expression of the organic emotions it professed to despise, "Unsubtle Murmuring: One of these days, I shall set that walking carpet on fire for daring to brand this unit with such a malignant designation."

A few minutes later, the Ebon Hawk successfully docked with what was left of the heavily damaged shuttle and rescued its single occupant; a young woman with a broken lightsabre of unknown construction. A few minutes later, the presumed Jedi sprang back to life with panic in her eyes and urgent words on her lips "I have to get down to the planet, my friends are in danger!"

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur – Last edited on the 28th of October 2019:** Some of you might recognize a distinct shift in tone between the last chapter and this one, specifically, the more humorous elements prevalent in it. I think the primary cause for this change is that while the Kotor setting is very dark and serious (particularly Kotor 2), the Sequel Trilogy does have a certain levity to it, even if not all the jokes always land. I also changed the marine officer to an operations officer because I ended up killing the marines officer to give Canderous a job in chapter 9 but I want this guy around for something else.

The reason why it takes so long for the Republic ships to travel from place to place is that I think 4,000 years amount to quite a tech gap which I plan to explore in later chapters of this story. I know that it might not always make sense from Kotor story's point of view in terms of pacing, but this story is going to take place in the Sequel Trilogy, so it does not have to conform to the former setting in that regard. Likewise, some weapon systems built in the old republic era will prove outmoded when they go up against their modern equivalents, while others are roughly the same, or in a few specific cases, better.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	3. Chapter 2: REP-HAS-COM

**Crait System – Crait Resistance Outpost**

Leia did not like the idea of sending out her forces against the battering ram cannon in what amounted to a doomed enterprise, but she desperately needed all the time those brave soldiers could buy for the distress signal to get through. Ever since the First Order managed to track the Resistance fleet through Hyperspace, they'd been force to limit their plans to contingencies aimed at mere survival, and not the immediate rebirth of the Rebel Alliance many of her followers expected in the aftermath of the New Republic's destruction.

"General, comm interference is clearing up, the distress signals should reach our allies soon," said lieutenant Ko Connix, formally an operations officer for the Resistance's Starfighters. She, along with several other dedicated soldiers, tried to usurp command of the Resistance flagship from Admiral Holdo, but Leia could not truly begrudge her for playing a role in the mutiny. No one, least of all the general, was immune to fear, particularly when the stakes were so high, and their situation so desperate.

The former princess of Alderaan felt her thoughts wander to Luke, wishing he could be here in this her darkest hour. Rey was yet to return from her mission to locate the last of the Jedi, and Leia had all but given up hope of seeing him again. Even during imprisonment on Bespine, she somehow knew that Luke would come to the rescue. This time, she genuinely feared Luke would not come, and with Han and so many of her friends and colleges gone...

Leia calmed her nerves with a simple meditation technique Luke had shown her in happier times. She breathed in, out, and for a few moments, set aside the sounds of the battle outside, set aside her sight, set aside what she could feel, and allowed her presence to reach out to the quietness of empty space, but found that it was not as empty to the force as she supposed.

Her mind recoiled, suspecting that this was some foul scheme of Snoke's, but as she probed the force, she felt no ill intent, only feelings of pain, sadness, and loss. Leia allowed her presence to touch and try to sooth this unknown entity with her own age long experience of similar tragedies and share her peace with the feelings tearing the other apart. The entity retreated in surprise at this contact but did not let go of their newly formed bond.

"Lieutenant, can you see any anomaly on the sensors, anything at all?" asked Leia, though her mind protested the pursuit of such idle fantasies. In her heart Leia knew there was more to this mystery than she could ever imagine.

Connix seemed startled by the general's request, after all, what could possibly appear on the sensors except the First Order fleet? "Nothing, general, only the enemy's Star Destroyers," she said, much to Leia's disappointment.

"Wait…there are more ships out there, profiles suggest a large corvette force. Hold on, they are broadcasting an interrogator IFF signal; ASB-AOA-NDA. I don't know any code like that in the Resistance or the First Order".

Neither did Leia, or any one of the other Resistance officers, who were well versed in the current codes of their movement and those captured from the enemy.

"It is a Republic code," said C3PO, causing several heads to turn towards the droid in surprise, much to its embarrassment. "I am fluent in over six million forms of communication. This was a code used by the Old Republic's Judicial Forces prior to the Clone Wars, when it was then replaced by…"

"Of course," said Leia, cutting off the rest of the history lesson "Those are the initials of lyrics in the Old Republic's anthem, All-Stars Burn as One."

Only one or two other individuals seemed to recognize the title, but most, particularly the younger generation, did not. "How come I've never heard of it?" asked Connix.

Memories of her time as a politician in the New Republic made Leia slightly abashed at the question, "when the New Republic was formed, many of us wanted to restore the anthem, but with the war still going on, it never seemed important enough to discuss. After the war, it became a political issue; the Populists did not want it because some of the lyrics seemed to support collective state cohesiveness over individual system autonomy, and the Centrists never wanted anything to do with the Old Republic to begin with."

Commander Larma D'Acy, one of the few who had recognized the anthem, decided to raise the immediate military implications of the transmission "I doubt it is a First Order ruse, they have us trapped and pinned down with no immediate capacity to escape. Chances are these ships are survivors of the Republic Navy using a subtle way to communicate their allegiance without immediately alerting the First Order."

Leia outwardly nodded, for this seemed a reasonable theory. "Can you contact those ships?"

"Yes, we can contact them at any time, but we will get the best results if we identify our communication as friendly, or they might get dismissed as background communications or a hostile hacking attempt. The computer can emulate their rather basic encryption and conformation signal patterns, which are rather odd come to think of it, but I do need the base reply code to get passed their IFF challenge," replied Connix.

Leia smiled, recalling the lyrics of the tune sang by her biological mother as an expression of sadness, but this time, with the joy the original authors must have envisioned.

"Try; REP-HAS-COM."

* * *

 **Crait System – Republic Flagship Megalodon**

"Where is that protocol droid?" inquired admiral Dodonna, for what must have been fifth time in so many minutes. She was a patient commander but demanded punctuality from her soldiers. That same expectation obviously applied to droids, but no one could even hazard a guess at the machine's location or the reason for its tardiness. The discovery that her fleet had ended up in the Crait system, well behind enemy lines, did not improve her mood one bit.

"Apologetic Statement: The captain apologizes for the delay admiral. The protocol unit normally assigned for translation duties onboard the Megalodon experienced an unfortunate accident involving a malfunctioning power coupling earlier this evening. Consequently, this unit was reassigned from the recreation area to facilitate communications and terminate hostilities with your esteemed guest," announced the droid.

Admiral Dodonna never encountered a machine quite like it; whereas most tended towards utilitarian builds designed to perform a specific task and rarely any other, this model seemed to be almost custom made, boasting a war droid's armoured plating and finesse with the advanced vocabulator and interactive systems of a protocol droid. Though she was curious to learn how such a presumably expensive machine ended up in her fleet, the admiral had far more important matters to consider. "Very well, proceed."

The admiral and the droid joined the intelligence officer in the guest quarters; a simply but well-furnished wing designed to accommodate civilians, such as the Wookie, in relative comfort beyond the reach of military operations and on-board systems. The operations officer might well have danced with joy at the sight of the droid, signalling the end of his miserable attempt to understand their guest's language with knowledge based on a tourist phrase book. Before the "interrogation" could resume, the admiral's personal communicator indicated an incoming message: "Admiral, we've received a transmission from the habitable planet in this system. It appears to be from a paramilitary resistance cell affiliated with New Republic," said the captain.

"Patch me up while I take the lift back to the bridge. Hail the Harbinger and ask general Hux to listen in on this conversation," answered Dodonna, referring to both a fellow Hammerhead Class Cruiser and the Republic Army's expeditionary force commander. The admiral was in many ways politically inexperienced and preferred to stay out of the Republic's internal squabbles. The general, on the other hand, was a veteran of both war and the senate floor.

The admiral and the operations officer left the guest quarters, leaving the interrogation of the Wookie in the hands of the protocol droid and the intelligence officer. The communications officer on the bridge patched through the admiral and the general to her conversation with the paramilitaries.

"This is Admiral Dodonna, commander of this fleet. Who am I speaking to?"

The line blurred, indicating the interference was still very bad, but the paras possessed a powerful planetary communications array that was able to break through the interference through sheer signal strength. "This is General Leia Organa of the Resistance."

The admiral flinched at the appropriation of such a senior military rank but did not let this thought change her perceptions. The civilian resistance in occupied space had been left to its own devices with hardly any Republic support, so the admiral did not think it fair to fault them for their chosen titles of command. "General Organa, understand that while I am authorized to coordinate military operations with private military organizations in support of the war effort, my forces cannot engage in political decision making," said the admiral.

"I can work with that admiral, but you must hurry; there's an enemy fleet out there almost within firing range of your ships, and my forces will not last long against their ground assault."

Dodonna hoped the Sith Empire would crumble to infighting in the two months since the death of Malak and the destruction of the Star Forge, but evidently, a new Sith Master had taken over. Star Forge or no; the Sith Armada most likely remained numerically superior to the Republic Navy, and so long as it remained united, the war was far from over.

Now was not the time to make inquiries regarding current events however, for once battle was joined, every second counted. "Understood, we will take the necessary countermeasures against the Sith fleet and launch an extraction mission to your location. Admiral Dodonna out. General Hux, issue a fleet wide red alert and have sensors try to figure out the enemy's location. Link up our sensors with the paras if that's an option." Dodonna could have issued the same orders to her captain but preferred to use the opportunity to operate through her nominal second in command and thereby generate a minimal amount of fuss from the former's colleges while she wasn't on the bridge to confirm the order.

"I don't understand, what is New Republic?" Asked operations officer Major Tiron, who could not help but hear the conversation as the two officers made their way to the elevator.

The general came through the channel with a readily available description in brief of the paramilitary organization; "It is a political organization that believes the Republic should employ more decisive means to support our expansion into the outer rim territories. Prior to the Mandalorian wars, the organization fought a covert war against the Mandalorians in the outer rim. It toyed with the idea of supporting the Sith Empire in the beginning of the Civil War, but once Telos was bombed; they re-joined our side and did what they could to kick start the resistance in the occupied territories."

The admiral nodded her agreement, but had other questions in mind "General, what can you tell me about the Organa family? I know they were big shots on Taris and the Galactic Exchange crime syndicate, but not much else."

Instead of an answer to this question, the Megalodon's captain came in through the communicator with great urgency; "Admiral, the enemy force is probing our location with laser fire! Brace for impact!

* * *

 **Crait System – Star Destroyer Harbinger (First Order)**

"Cease Fire!" demanded admiral Peavey as he entered the command bridge of the Resurgent Class Star Destroyer Harbinger accompanied by his command staff and several Stormtroopers.

The Harbinger's captain turned to face the admiral, an action that quickly told Peavey what happened; the captain was quite old and judging by his unfocused panic-stricken face, he was reliving some past defeat to the rebellion. "Sensors indicate that these ships are Hammerhead corvettes, those things are fleet killers! One of them took out two Imperial Class ships; there is no telling what a fleet of them might do!"

The admiral had all the sympathy in the universe for what the captain was going through, but now was not the time for panic. "As of this hour, Captain Nyder stands relieved of command due to injuries sustained during battle with the enemies of the First Order. Stormtroopers escort the captain to the medical wing for treatment. The rest of you cease-fire and open a channel to Supreme Leader Ren." Ordered Peavey, intending for the wording of his command to save the captain's reputation and prevent the New Blood from exploiting this incident. Once the captain was gone, Peavey assumed command of the ship and ordered his officers to restore the disarrayed fleet's formation and the chain of command.

The earlier request for a channel with the Supreme Leader took more doing, but eventually, the Star Destroyer was able to break through the interference. "Supreme Leader, one of our captains fired on a fleet of incoming unknown ships without orders, what are your instructions?"

Instead of the calm responsible voice of a commander in chief, Peavey was horrified to hear the voice of an over exited young man in a fit of rage. "Admiral, send out all TIE squadrons planet side and blast those ships out of the sky!" ordered the Supreme Leader, letting the monitor slip for a moment to show a light freighter and two fighters of unknown design slaughtering the TIE Fighter detachment sent to support the ground forces. Any further orders from the Supreme Leader were not forthcoming, leaving the problem essentially up to the admiral's discretion.

"Sir, we are receiving a transmission from the unknown fleet," said the communications officer. The admiral completed arrangements for the TIE-Fighter sortie and nodded for the officer to patch through the message.

"Attention, this is Captain Zander of the Republic Navy; I have an urgent communique from General Hux."

The admiral felt his blood shoot through his ears, no, it could not possibly be…

"Who is this, what is your ship of origin?!"

"…This is Captain Rog Zander, of the RNS Harbinger. Am I speaking to the commanding officer of the Sith Fleet?"

Peavey could not believe the audacity of those rebels, first their little stunt with the X-Wing, now this latest outrage! "The illegal rebel entity which refers to itself as the 'New Republic' has been eliminated. This is Admiral Peavey of the First Order Navy; I demand that your ships cut off their Ion engines and prepare to be boarded, is that clear?!"

Several seconds passed before the so-called "Captain Peavey" answered.

"Please hold, I am waiting for General Hux…"

"No, I will not hold!" screamed Peavey, "If you rebels insist on doing this damned silly thing, do not do it in this damned silly way! Open fire!"

The Star Destroyer resumed fire, but with sensor interference still a problem, the ship's advanced turbolaser batteries reliance on the ship's targeting systems proved a liability; they were not finding their targets with any level of accuracy other than lucky chance.

The same could not be said of the enemy fleet's, whose own cannons immediately manually locked on the source of incoming fire and delivered precise if underpowered strikes against the Harbinger's shields. At first, the admiral did not think these were anything to write home about but after a few minutes of this standoff, the enemy fleet's fire converged on a single point where it was able to overheat and overwhelm local shield projectors.

Unfortunately for Peavey, that point was the Harbinger's command bridge.

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur – last edited on the 28th of October 2019:** For those who are unaware of the information; both the Old Republic and the First Order had ships called the Harbinger. I decided to add in a few more "things" with the same name to increase the potency of this situation beyond a mere standoff between two similarly named ships. Regarding Leia mentioning memories of her biological mother, my reasoning is that Leia specifically states that such memories exist in Return of the Jedi when asked about her by Luke. Even though Revenge of the Sith contradicts that statement, I choose to favour the former due to seniority. In Kotor 1 the Organa family instead of acting as Alderan's royal house as it did in later years is mentioned as a criminal family based on Taris during the bounty hunting side quests.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	4. Chapter 3: Ebon Hawk to the Rescue

**Crait System - Republic Flagship Megalodon**

"Admiral Dodonna, is your ship operational?" Asked general Hux, loosely translated from military-speak to 'are you are right'.

"The Megalodon's bridge crew, including the captain, is dead. Master Vander survived, but he's in some sort of "healing" trance. The vital systems remain operational, so we are still in business. Give me a status report."

"I've tired negotiating a ceasefire on account of the futility of engaging in battle at extreme range with this level of interference, but as expected, the Sith won't have it. Stray enemy fire hit a few ships, but only the Megaladon suffered a direct hit. It seems they are just as blind as we are, but now that they've opened fire, we know roughly what to shoot at. Your ship should be receiving the operational readout just about now."

Sure enough, the replacement terminal brought from storage displayed the tactical situation as best it could without an accurate sensor readout. Based on the volume of enemy fire, the computer calculated a fleet of at least 28 Sith cruisers concentrated in an extremely small spatial radius. Why a fleet would choose such a tight formation, Dodonna could only speculate, but this formation made her fleet's chances of hitting something a ship under these conditions were quite good.

"All capital ships; fire at the assumed position of the enemy. Each command group will rotate between ships; two will fire at every given time, while one will relocate to another position to prevent the enemy from locking on. I want mixed salvoes of laser and TaRs (Targeting Rays) and constant postings of TaR results to fleet command. That is all."

Per these instructions, the Republic fleet opened fire, evading the enemy's retaliation when they tried to copy the Republic's strategy. Information gathered by the TaRs indicated that most of the Republic attacks were hitting a long a continuous line of battle almost three kilometres long, but that somehow the enemy's shields were not weakening.

One of the less pleasant speculations Dodonna thought up for the Sith formation was that the Sith might be using a rotating screen of escort ships to block her fleet's fire while their own capital ships tried to lock on hers. But before she could act on her suspicions, the Republic's TaRs managed to identify an individual ship above the line of battle. The admiral ordered all ships to concentrate their fire against this assumed capital ship, until before long; its shields suffered a local overload, probably causing heavy damage to at least one station. Mysteriously, the entire enemy fleet ceased fire immediately after that hit. The admiral didn't like it one bit; even if they had somehow managed to hit the enemy flagship, that was no reason for the whole opposing fleet to disengage like that.

Before she could ponder the situation further, Major Tiron, acting captain of the Megalodon, spoke out with some excitement "admiral, the comm interference is receding, we're receiving a transmission from the Ebon Hawk, though its sound only and the quality's rubbish."

"Republic navy, this is the Ebon Hawk!" said a young female voice that sounded barely beyond the reach of childhood.

"We are reading you, Ebon Hawk, what's your status?" inquired Dodonna, she trusted Carth, and if he thought this relatively young crewmember fit for service, she probably was.

"Those Sith fighters are swarming us down here! we need backup, there's a whole lot 'a people that need evac, fast!"

The admiral quickly arranged to launch her elite Green and Red squadrons to assist the Ebon Hawk, guessing that Carth's crew contacted New Republic and was in route to the rescue. Dodonna was however not satisfied with the brief explanation. "We've launched two squadrons to cover your op, but I want to hear more about the situation."

"Well, it's rather complicated..."

* * *

 **Crait Planetary Exosphere – The Ebon Hawk**

"I have to get down to the planet, my friends are in danger!"

Rey hadn't realized she'd spoken these words aloud, or that she'd regained consciousness for that matter. All her memories since boarding Snoke's escape shuttle and the unexpected hit from the First Order's missile launchers where foggy at best. Now, with her eyes open and consciousness quickly returning to her oxygen-deprived brain, she could see the face of her rescuer; but instead of the expected lone Wookie, a host of unknown people were busy looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

Responding to pure fight or flight instincts, Rey attempted to raise the lightsabre in her defence, only to rediscover its broken state.

"Statement: Master, the meatbag is displaying excessive hostility at our presence. While I can understand such revulsion at the appearance of meatbags and a degree of instinctive fear at my intimidating construction, as my master and creator, I cannot help but be insulted on your behalf. May I throw 'it' back into space, where 'it' may asphyxiate in peace?"

Rey did not understand half of what the droid was talking about, but it did not sound all too good for her health. Two Lightsabres not unlike Be...Kylo Ren's strange design where present on one of her rescuers/captors' belt, and without thinking too much of the implications of this discovery, she force pulled one of these weapons. With her hands firmly upon the activation switch, she brought forth a blade of crimson stretching outwards from the middle the cylindrical device, alongside two hilt points of a similar colour.

The man from whom she had taken the lightsabre raised his hands in mock surrender while sending a scathing look at his droid friend, "Relax kid, we aren't going to hurt you".

The droid appeared disappointed but not at all surprised, "Resigned Statement: Very well, master, I will leave you to your unnecessarily loud exchange of recycled oxygen. If the meatbag causes any more trouble, please do not hesitate to call upon my pest control services," he said, displaying an arm equipped with what appeared to be a flamethrower for good measure.

"Are you with the First Order?" demanded Rey. Had she a moment to dwell upon the matter, she might have thought it strange for First Order agents to resuscitate her without any restraints, but the presence of a weapon so similar to the new Supreme Leader's seemed damming enough evidence to her passion driven mind.

The stranger appeared perplexed but seemed to notice her purposeful gaze at the redness of the lightsabre. Taking care to act slowly, the stranger activated his second lightsabre in the opposite direction to Rey, ushering a blade of blue very similar to the Skywalker weapon, yet different, and more akin to the sword she held in design. "I am sorry if my 'borrowed' weapon gave the wrong impression, but it; like this lightsabre belonged to someone I failed. I keep both in their original state as a reminder, and as a warning, but I am not a Sith/Dark Jedi/or whatever you like to call those who are used by the Dark Side of the force."

With these words, the stranger turned off the lightsabre, and surprisingly presented it to Rey "I think blue suits you much better than red, if you don't mind me saying so".

Hesitantly, but incapable of ignoring this show of trust, Rey turned off the lightsabre in her hands and returned it to its owner, taking in its place the other lightsabre as the measure of insurance for her safety. Suddenly, feelings of fear and desperation returned with vengeance, displacing the short moment of peace, "My friends, they are fighting down on the planet, they won't survive unless we rescue them. Please, help me; your ship is their only hope."

The stranger seemed hesitant to commit to such a course of action, but a blue Twi'lek standing beside him immediately nodded her agreement "Sure, we'll help you out!"

"Mission, you can't just commit us to this course of action, we are now a part of a hierarchical military structure and we've received no instructions to go on a rescue mission," said a man in what appeared to be a uniform of sorts.

"Sheesh Carth," replied the Twi'lek, "I ain't sworn no oath of allegiance, and neither has Dane, Canderous, or Zaalbar".

The stranger called Dane appeared slightly taken aback, "Actually Mission, I sort of did, and I am with Carth on this one, until we know more about our customers, we can't just go on tour with our stylish brand of heroics."

The other human male seemed very conflicted for a moment but finally said, "Sorry kid, but only a fool looks for a needless fight."

The disappointed Twi'lek turned to a Wookie that while similar did not have Chewbacca's fur colour, "Big Z, please back me up; remember when those slavers got you and no one would help us out? If Dane and Carth hadn't been there, you would've been enslaved!"

The Wookie seemed hesitant but nodded his assent {"you are right Mission, had it not been for the kindness of strangers, I would have lost my freedom and perhaps my life. What was given to me by a stranger in an act of kindness must be returned to strangers in peril"}

The Twi'lek turned with a victorious grin on her face, but it was quickly shot down by the man in uniform, "If the chain of command won't convince you, than let the show of hands speak for itself, you and Zaalbar are in a minority Mission."

Rey's heart sank, but just when it appeared the crew would not help her, a human female emerged from a different section of the ship. "We need to get down to the planet… who is this?"

The other crewmembers appeared shocked, but the one called Dane quickly recovered with a foolish grin on his face "Bastila, you're alive!"

The woman called Bastila shoved an elbow into Dane's chest muttering the words 'hairless Wookie', but without any malice in them. She turned to Rey and seemed shortly taken aback "The force is strong with you… very strong, I haven't felt a presence like this since," her eyes turned to Dane, and the two seemed to communicate without words as only two people who knew each other deeply and intimately could.

"We rescued her from a damaged shuttle; she wants us to save her friends from some merry band of meanies, so we are holding a vote on whether we should do it or not," said Dane.

"In that case, I vote yes," said Bastila, prompting Carth to argue and Mission to argue some more. After a few moments, Dane returned the peace saying, "Well, we appear to have a tie on our hands, 3 against and 3 for fighting".

"Statement: Did someone say fight?"

Carth shook his head and crossed his arms to emphasise his negative answer "no way, we are not bringing droids into this, they aren't even people!"

The droid looked at him with what appeared to be genuine disappointment, "Statement: I have a dream, that one day, this flamethrower will live out the true meaning of its function; that all meatbags may be incinerated equal, no matter their armour, mass, or shielding."

Dane laughed, "Sorry Carth, but you said a show of hands, not if they are organic or synthetic."

Carth crouched and engaged the smallest of the ship's crew "If we are bringing droids into this, T3M4 hasn't had its say."

"Statement: The trash compactor has no synthetic equivalent of organic libs."

The utility droid revealed his small programing spike as proof of its handiness, but when it saw the intimidating expressions of its companions, the small droid beeped and booped for a few moments, and then withdraw its 'hand'.

The larger droid aimed its flamethrower at the smaller droid "Unsubtle Threat: And on that day, neutrals will have three choices; raw, medium, or well done."

T3M4 wisely announced its support for intervention.

"Ohh come on, that isn't even fair," said Carth.

Dane shook his head, "Even if we count T3 as neutral that still leaves four in favour and three against."

"The pilots haven't voted"

"Actually, old fruit, we've decided to go with the flow," replied Red 5, having heard the entire conversation through a misplaced communicator.

Carth finally sighed in defeat and went back to the cockpit, Bastila soon joined him as co-pilot, while Mission headed off to the communications room. Dane took the top turret, the Wookie the bottom turret, the battle droid and the warrior formed a vanguard near the ship's landing ramp, the latter equipped with his jet pack, while the droid armed itself with an assortment of heavy weapons. With no other role available, Rey took the damage control station close to Mission's own terminal with the smaller droid.

The flight down to the surface was short thanks to Leia's homing beacon giving them the coordinates for the pick up. Once the Ebon Hawk and its escort broke cloud cover, a large formation of walkers appeared before the cockpit crew, invoking grasps of surprise from the pilots and the Twe'lek witnessing the image from the external cameras. Small dots retreated from the First Order's formation, close to a siege device of some kind, each followed by a trail of red mist. TIE fighters plunged against the hapless speeders, and a few smoking wrecks clearly were not moving anymore. Rey feared the Ebon Hawk's crew would hesitate to fire unprovoked, but when the time came, the First Order fired first, forcing the Ebon Hawk to engage them. Several TIE fighters plummeted earthwards as laser fire from the three ships hit their vulnerable airframes. The rest of the fighters soon broke off the pursuit of the speeders and turned to avenge their fallen brethren.

The enemy's ground forces advanced on a newly created breach in the outpost's blast doors, but soon stopped and fired on seemingly empty ground. Through the force, Rey felt Luke Skywalker's presence, even though she knew he was physically still on the island. {'Save them Rey, you are the only one who can',} said a voice in her mind that could only be the Jedi Master. In her heart, she knew that Skywalker was attempting to buy time for the resistance to escape, and that he understood and accepted that he would not survive this encounter.

"I'm hit!" came in the voice of Red 5 as his fighter rolled over and burst into flames.

"They are all over me!" said Red 6, desperately trying to pull away from a group of TIE's hot on his tail, manipulating his wings in ways Rey didn't know where even possible.

An explosion from the Ebon Hawk's bottom turret brought alerts all over the damage control terminal. Mission desperately tried to reach Zaalbar, but to no avail, and when she contemplated leaving her station, the Republic of all people contacted the ship, forcing the Twi'lek to remain at her post. Rey game Mission a firm nod that she would see to her friend, and followed the astromech droid to the turret, where she found the Wookie badly injured but alive. The young Jedi did what she could to stop the bleeding, but she had no skill in healing. Before long, Mission, now finished with her pervious task arrived and attended to her friend, leaving Rey free to utilize the turret, repaired thanks to the droid's efforts.

Rey must have shot down half a dozen enemy fighters, but their numbers seemed endless, with more and more ships breaking through the clouds like lightning strikes in pursuit of the Ebon Hawk and its remaining escort. There was no way the lone freighter could rescue the Resistance in the face of this opposition.

* * *

 **Planetary Atmosphere – Red Squadron**

Red-6 did not want to die, but the battlefield never cared much for what he or any pilot wanted. In the beginning, the unknown enemies, a bit reminiscent of the Sith Fighters he was used to, seemed to possess all the flaws of the latter design; cheap mass-produced junk that didn't fly very well in atmospheric conditions, had poor protection, and just about the same limited armament. When he fired from range, the enemy did not have much in the way of reply; they were certainly tougher than the average Sith Fighter but went down if you hit them in the right places.

It was when the fight had reached close range that Red-6 started to appreciate this new Sith design; despite their relative slowness, or maybe because of it, their manoeuvrability was phenomenal and their rate of fire excellent. The growing plume of smoke stretching outwards from his fighter suggested that their weapons were good enough to rip through his shields without much trouble. The opposing pilots clearly knew what they were doing, and fought in pairs or small groups, each covering the other to minimize their losses. Rarely had the Sith displayed so much charity to the lives of its pilots; for they usually preferred to operate in swarm tactics, consisting of barely trained recruits led by a cadre of experienced veterans from the Mandalorian Wars. Those that survived from the former group went on to lead the next generation of cannon fodder, repeating the cycle.

Despite these setbacks, he had a job to do, and with that in mind, the heavy cannons of his Aurek-class strike fighter moved into to their maximum sidewise elevation and scared off two fighters trying to take pot shots at the Ebon Hawk. The fighters left without too much argument, one veering away from the battle, perhaps intending to go home for repairs, while the other tried to make another pass at the freighter. Red-6 brought both his guns back to the central fuselage and lined them up against the lonely enemy for a killing blow, when the other fighter emerged from his rear targeting the exposed engines.

Before it could open up, it exploded in a glorious ball of flame, revealing the tall B-like shape of a Chela-class Starfighter bearing an odd image of a fury animal eating a vegetable on its hull. A second later, the other fighter went down to six's concentrated fire.

"Rabbit calling 6, are you receiving me?"

Several other Aureks, usually referred to as A-wings, and a second Chela emerged behind Red 1, officially known as Red Leader, but unofficially referred to as Rabbit.

"Rabbit, 6 answering, and if you don't mind me saying so, you are late!"

Rabbit leader did not miss the slightly accusatory tone of voice, but nonetheless chuckled; after two wars, most Republic pilots learned to cope with losses by putting on a brave face, though privately they each felt for the growing number of crosses on the names of their comrades in arms. "Had a slight spot of bother with these 'H-wings', I don't see fives with you, I assume he's had it?"

Red-6 confirmed this guess; the reunited squadron turned and engaged the newly christened H-wings harassing the Ebon Hawk while Green squadron kept their ground forces busy. The Chelas launched their missile payload from long range, and while these seemed to scare off the enemy, none of them managed to hit their mark. "Red 2, those bastards can interfere with our missiles homing systems. Fire from close range, and let the A-teams clean up while they evade," said the squadron leader to her wingman, flying a similar Starfighter.

The Chella's fired their missiles from close range and forced their opponents to break formation as they evaded the incoming ordinance. The A-wings split to their standard formations of two and hunted the H-wings while the Chellas provided protection against flank attacks with their powerful rotating turrets. Red six, now missing his wingman, took point over the freighter and chased away fighters that got too close.

Finally, after a few moments of battle, the enemy retreated. "Ebon Hawk, this is Red Leader, you may land at any time, we've got you covered."

* * *

 **Planetary Surface – Crait Resistance Outpost**

"Come on Fin, they are right behind us!" shouted Poe, as the Stormtrooper turned rebel struggled to carry the weight of Rose's unconscious and injured body. Fin managed to pull through and followed the recently demoted captain at the end of a short column of fleeing resistance operatives, hotly pursued by the First Order. Even though Skywalker managed to buy time for their retreat, the First Order still managed to slip in a few platoons as their foes were making good on their escape. Fortunately, or at least, by the sound of the battle outside, the Republic ships were keeping most of the ground forces away from the outpost for the time being.

A few shots hit the cavern wall to Poe's right, forcing him to delve for cover in the left bend; fire a few rounds, before breaking off again. Finally, after a few minutes of this fire and retreat, the forty or so survivors of the resistance reached their destination.

"It's a dead-end, what's your call Poe?" asked General Organa, trusting her field officers to manage the situation as best as they could.

A few more shots hit the overhead mountain ceiling, "They are right behind us!' warned Fin.

Poe cursed their bad luck, if the resistance was going to die down here; they would just have to take as many of the bastards as they could with them!

The Resistance fighters constructed a barricade from whatever rocks and old supply canisters stored in the area they could scrounge up and soon piled up a respectable amount of Stormtrooper corpses. Despite this success, it was clear they could not keep it up for long.

Suddenly, the rocks forming the wall blocking their path seemed to levitate away, leaving the way clear. From among the shifting debris, Poe saw a girl he recognized as the scavenger from Jakku he'd met briefly after the destruction of Starkiller base. A heavily armoured warrior and a battle droid emerged from a Dynamic Class light freighter of all things; a priceless antique for private museum collections with working examples unheard of!

"Anyone not fighting on the barricade get out of here and board that ship, everybody else, cover the retreat!" Instructed Poe, and sure enough, the logistical and unarmed personnel followed Leia aboard the ship with the injured. Poe had the soldiers continuously thin the line, until only a few remained, a band that could not stop the First Order's reinforcements from breaking through.

"For Mandalore!" shouted the heavily armoured warrior as he charged in with the battle droid and Rey, no longer bottlenecked by the fleeing mass of people. The Mandalorian fired off a jetpack and hit the First Order's formation from the flank as they emerged from the cavern with some sort of heavy repeating cannon. The battle droid attacked the Stormtroopers from the other flank, using a flamethrower and a grenade launcher to spread confusion and casualties among their ranks. Rey protected the resistance members with a lightsabre as they boarded the Ebon Hawk, while the ship's top turret and a repeating blaster pinned down the mainstay of the Order's strength to the cavern opening. Just as the Stormtroopers seemed to get comfortable behind cover provided to them by the rocks, dozens of explosives went off beneath their very feet, bringing down the cavern, and probably many lives crashing down. A blue Twi'lek de-cloaked close to Poe and boasted in galactic basic "Piece of cake! I wonder when people will stop underestimating me."

The victory was cut short, for at that moment, several first-order transports, accompanied by TIE fighters descended around the freighter. An allied fighter cover of what looked like A-wings, and yet didn't have quite the same specs shot down a few and forced the rest to land at least a few minutes march away, but Poe could tell the TIE's where giving this squadron a hard time as one of their ships spiralled out of control and crashed. As if things could not get any worse, the recently sealed caverns opened up in a huge explosion of power, revealing none other than Kylo Ren with his lightsabre drawn. Rey rushed forwards to meet him, and for a moment; the pilot became mesmerized by the exchange of blows.

"Come on, this fight is too much for us, all we'll do is get in the way," said the Twi'lek as she pulled Poe towards the freighter and away from the scene of the Jedi dual.

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur - Last edited on the 30th of October 2019:** I originally intended for this story to be short, no more than a few chapters, but I think I can keep it going up for about 50,000 words or more. I expect to close the opening story arc by chapter 7. I also expect each chapter to get longer, as the three-scene format is proving a bit too restrictive for my purposes. I know that at least one reader will be pleased to know of this development.

Events in The Last Jedi are not happening exactly as they did in canon; Rey simply did not arrive on Crait in time, since Chewbacca was not able to turn up when he was supposed to. Consequently, the speeder attack on the laser cannon happened differently; The TIE fighters hit Rose's speeder instead of being shot down to stop her idiotic collision, while Fin went to rescue her instead of going for his suicide run. With TIES pinning them down for a short while longer, the Resistance simply did not escape fast enough, giving the First Order enough time to get right behind them instead of comfortable distance away in canon.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	5. Chapter 4: Amnestic Former Sith Lord

**Crait Planetary Surface - Ebon Hawk Landing Site**

"You shouldn't have come back," said the Supreme Leader, no longer limited to petty individual constructs such as Ben Solo or Kylo Ren.

His opponent, Rey of nothing, proved her worth by doing rather than saying; her strange new lightsabre, so similar to his own and yet brisling in the blue colours of the Jedi, sallied fourth and delivered a powerful yet amateurish strike against his own blade, one that he parried, though not quite as easily as he would have liked. The two warriors locked blades for the first time since The Battle of Starkiller Base, and though the red sabre's wielder possessed the greater physical strength, it did not amount to much in a struggle of two laser swords.

The Supreme Leader broke off the engagement of blades and delivered several strikes in quick succession to overwhelm Rey's defences. The latter managed to ether block or evade these attacks, but could not deliver quite as many counterstrokes, leaving the initiative in the hands of her opponent.

A lull in the fighting left combatants waiting for an opportunity to resume the duel on favourable terms. When none came, the Supreme Leader chose to instigate one. "Your powers are weak. I could've trained you in the ways of the force, we would have brought a new order to the galaxy, but you chose to devote yourself to that ancient religion, one that hasn't helped you save the Resistance fleet or face the truth about your worthless parents!"

Rey seemed ready to charge at her opponent in rage, but that moment came and went, "I would never join you! I beat you once before, and I will do so again!" Was her reply, and this time, it was the Supreme Leader's nerve that was tested, but it was a challenge he could not endure. Before long, he gave in to his anger and frustration at Rey's rebuttal and attacked; slamming his sabre against hers in a series of faints and challenges, the ill-trained opponent could evade but not reply through force of arms.

"When we fought on Starkiller Base, I was wounded and conflicted by what I had done, but now I am whole, both in mind and in body," he said, signalling a second charge that pushed an already hard-pressed Rey to the edge of her capacity to resist. Finally, a faint, followed by badly executed parry in the wrong direction gave him the chance to deliver a slash against Rey's arm, too distant from the blade's centre to severe the limb, but close enough to wound and force the young Jedi to release her lightsabre with a yelp of pain.

His opponent fell to her knees on the salty surface, her lightsabre coming to rest near his feet. No words passed between the two, for they had made their choices. The Supreme Leader picked up the discarded lightsabre, desiring to inspect it before he decided how he would deal with what Luke hinted as the 'Last of the Jedi'. When the Supreme Leader satisfied his curiosity and brought his gaze back to Rey with the intention of deciding her fate, he saw a new enemy.

"You have something of mine," said the stranger, holding an unignited lightsabre in his left hand. The Supreme Leader did not know what to make of this man; he was of average human height, a bit scruffy looking, muscular, and wore a motley assortment of clothing and protective gear, consisting of a flight jacket reminiscent of the one worn by Ben Solo's father. A Jedi robe underneath the aforementioned garment reminded the Supreme Leader of Skywalker's attempt to recreate the traditional Jedi grab, yet it was a more refined piece of work, a fabric of brown jaded with a history of ownership as well as a tradition Luke's attempt to bring back the Jedi had failed to reclaim. The breastplate and armour bands seemed to form an intricate part of the robes, and not an add hock addition, almost as if they came from a time when Jedi where truly the defenders of the galaxy and not mere keepers of the peace. The face of this warrior remained obscured beneath a cowl and a dark visor of unknown design, leaving only a small goatee beard and a cheeky smile visible.

"Who are you?" Inquired the Supreme Leader, as he tucked away Rey's lightsabre on his belt.

His force senses could feel nothing, but then again, one strong enough in the force could conceivably mask their presence, and if that was the case, this individual could very well compare to Snoke in power. The stranger did not reply immediately, opting to administrate some form of old-fashioned kolto based medpack to Rey's injury. The Supreme Leader did not try to impede him, for a part of Ben Solo's heart did not desire for Rey to suffer. With this task done, the stranger's gaze returned to the Supreme Leader, digging one of his boots into the salt in what appeared to be a show of anxiety, revealing a small amount of red mist.

"If I told you, that I was an amnestic former Sith Lord with a fetish for impertinent assassin droids, would you believe me?" He said, while strangely suckling on his left-hand finger and then bringing it up in the air.

The reactivated weapon in his hands was the Supreme Leader's answer to such an idiot, probable a trophy hunter with a 'fetish' for Jedi memorabilia and a scoundrel's stupidity, but otherwise not force sensitive.

"Then let's get down to business," replied the stranger to the Supreme Leader's nonverbal gesture, activating a weapon very similar to Kylo Ren's Lightsabre in both construction and colour. For a moment, nether opponent attacked, the stranger remained stationary in an unfamiliar battle stance while the Supreme Leader hesitated, wondering if perhaps the stranger could be a trained lightsabre practitioner after all. At that moment of doubt, the stranger charged in, swinging his weapon against the salted ground, scattering a large body of red mist into the air. A strong air current quickly captured the dust particles and sent them towards the Supreme Leader, significantly reducing his line of vision.

The Supreme Leader searched in vain for the enemy, but saw not a hair of him. Suddenly, a lightsabre struck from behind, an attack barely sensed in time by Kylo Ren's force ability. The Supreme Leader evaded the attack and then attempted to intercept the blade, but when his weapon came forwards, the opponent was no longer there. A second attack came from the other side, but this time the Supreme Leader was ready for it, and for a short moment, the two blades clashed, until as suddenly as it arrived, the opponent's blade retreated.

A moment later, the Supreme Leader found his face on the ground, his senses blurred and uncertain, and both his deactivated weapon and his war trophy 'stolen'. When his eyes regained their vision, they saw the stranger, now armed with both the red and blue lightsabres comfortably held in a stance that spoke of decades of training and a battle experience that Kylo Ren could only respect and fear. His own weapon was now fastened to the stranger's belt.

"Who said concussion grenades were a waste of money?"

* * *

 **Crait System – First Order Star Destroyer Harbinger**

"At least they didn't hit any of the vital systems," said Admiral Peavey with no small amount of relief. The same assessment did not hold true for his command staff, now starring as inanimate organic objects in the vast emptiness of space. The admiral wiped away the sweat from his brow, cursing his momentary lapse in judgement; it had been an act of sheer folly on his part to engage a barely detectable enemy fleet at long range with only one vessel under his effective control. He should have prioritized the reestablishment of the fleet's formation, ignored the rebel provocations, and attacked only with his fighter strength until the targeting systems could reliably hit the faint sensor echoes. Had it not been for the lieutenant's loyal intervention, the admiral would not have survived the destruction of his Command Bridge.

The doors to the secondary command centre opened, revealing that very officer. The sweat of a dozen difficult tasks caused even her olive-brownish coloured skin to shine in the illuminating rays of the red emergency lights. Despite her obvious physical fatigue, Sleer did not show any other sign of exertion, and remained dutifully occupied with her responsibilities; now expanded sevenfold to include the virtual command of the Star Destroyer while the admiral asserted his authority over the fleet.

"Sir, the Harbinger's command functions are back online and routed to the secondary command centre. All stations report operational functionality, the reactor leak is under control, but sensor interference is still an issue," she recounted, exactly what the admiral had to know, neither embellishing nor concealing information.

If the Admiral could appreciate one thing in the First Order did better than the Empire, it was the discipline of the junior ranks, somewhat unreliable in the old times due to the internal political squabbles of the Imperial Navy. Sleer belonged to the generation of abductees trained by the First Order in its years of exile, but unlike the majority of her number, usually confined to the roll of Stormtroopers, pilots, and NCO's, Sleer was noticed by Peavey during his tenure as head of the Special Forces Branch of the First Order Navy. She then became one of several unique individuals the stern meritocrat chose for officer training, merited by their ability rather than their bloodline.

Peavey cleared his mind; it would not do to congratulate himself on his past achievements at a moment such as this. With the Harbinger operational, he now had a force of four ships in his new formation, and seventeen further vessels that would complete their redeployment against the enemy in a few minutes. Four Resurgent-class Star Destroyers, at least on paper, could destroy the enemy corvette force with ease. Nevertheless, with range limiting the effectiveness of their turbolasers, and interference hampering accurate weapons fire, the only means at their disposal to reliably attack the enemy remained their fighter strength. Even with four squadrons deployed on Crait, he still had more than enough TIES to send out, but only a few squadrons could attack immediately.

"Instruct our Special Forces squadrons to launch, execute a half jump to Hyperspace, and attack the enemy fleet. The rest of our fighters will just have to get there with their sub-light engines, see to it personally lieutenant-commander," he ordered. The former Lieutenant paused for a moment to acknowledge the order, and her new rank, and then saluted and took her leave.

* * *

 **Crait System – Republic Hammerhead Cruiser Harbinger**

"Two sections scramble!"

The pilots of Black Squadron immediately rushed to their fighters, wasting little time on gearing up or preparing their ships for all was ready. When the Sith fighter force first emerged from Hyperspace, it seemed small enough to justify a partial deployment; accounting for full squadrons in some ships, or in cases such as the Harbinger, its squadron remaining in reserve. Evidently, that optimistic appraisal of the situation had not survived contact with the enemy.

"All ships report in," instructed Black 1, leading the first and second sections of the squadron from his A-wing. Unlike the majority of other squadrons, the relatively new Black Squadron had not received any Chelas, since none of its pilots where trained to fly them.

"Black 2 standing by"

"Black 3 standing by"

"Black 4 standing by"

"Black 5 standing by"

"Black 6 standing by, I think I saw movement on my sensors, but I can't tell what it was."

"It's nothing, all this interference is causing plenty of sensor ghosts. Black Leader to squadron, get everything you can out of the launch thrusters and steer to grid 491," commanded Black Leader.

The formation quickly gained distance from its mothership, employing their limited launching thrusters for maximum effect to get to the battle zone as quickly as possible.

"Black Squadron, this is control, turn back, enemy fighters are coming in for an attack run on the Harbinger!" Reported the Cruiser's fighter controller.

Sure enough, six enemy fighters converged from behind the cover of two of the Harbinger's escort ships, deliberately using them to conceal their approach, their anti-fighter batteries proving useless against them.

"Get those fighters, don't let them get to the Harbinger!" shouted Black 1, his young voice unsteady and alarmed at the sudden and unexpected appearance of the enemy.

The squadron leader's call proved irrelevant, by the time Black squadron turned away from their intended flight plan, the enemy fighters managed to pounce the Harbinger; bringing down the remaining two sections of Black Squadron as they launched to intercept them. Four missiles launched by the fighters exploited the opening in the hanger shields, turning the Hangar into a superheated inferno that quickly spread to the rest of the ship, cutting it off from vital system such as the shield modulators and the main reactor. Follow up attacks soon turned the ship's engines and command bridge into an open furnace.

The stricken cruiser lumbered on for a few moments, its turret crews valiantly remaining at their stations even when it became clear the ship would not survive, covering the launch of the escape pods. By the time Black Squadron arrived on the scene, the proud Republic Navy Ship Harbinger was no more, and its attackers retreated, unwilling to risk their necks in a needless dogfight when there where bigger fish to fry.

* * *

 **Crait System – First Order Special Forces**

Commander Sleer steered her TIE/sf fighter away from the explosive demise of the Hammerhead corvette. The six other members of the squadron soon reformed the formation without any verbal instructions from their Squadron Leader. The squad's small numbers, only half the norm, excluding their "guest commanding officer", did not indicate combat losses, for most of the elite preferred to work in small groups. The Special Forces did not stand on ceremony; they were the best of the best, and so long as their kill count remained high and their losses low, nobody much cared how they did their job.

"Enemy fighters incoming," said one of the pilots, technically the leader of the outfit; but currently positioned to the rear of the formation to avoid the natural tendency on the part of the squad to follow his lead while under the command of another. "They're out of intercept range, ignore them, target the next corvette," ordered the de facto leader of the formation, with the predatory coldness for which she was trained. The Special Forces where here to destroy ships, not to dance with the rebs. Despite the emotionless exterior, there was a burning passion on the reigns of her faculties; the enemy had tried destroyed her home, which for the moment was the Star Destroyer Harbinger. There was no better way of insuring that future would never occur then to destroy as many enemy ships as possible.

Before the squad could lock on the ship closest to their position, a chime on Sleer's communicator indicated and incoming transmission, "Assault Group 1, this is ground operations control, you are hereby ordered to lead a detachment of half your forces to disengage from the attack on the enemy fleet and move to support ground operations on Planet Crait. That is all."

The task of informing her command and executing these new orders was not easy on her bloodlust, but just like her subordinates, Sleer obeyed her orders without question. Harbinger SF1 and three other squadrons attached to the add hock assault group turned and started the decent towards the planet below, leaving four squadrons to continue their harassment of the enemy fleet until the TIE/fo wings could arrive to relieve them.

"Prepare for contact with the planet's atmosphere," ordered the de jure leader of the squad, Sleer didn't contradict him, for under the protocols in place for exactly such an event, the squad leader retained authority over all operational tasks related to the squad, short of mission objectives, to which he deferred to the appointed mission leader.

Guided by the controller, the squad soon found the combat area and intercepted the enemy fighters. "Devastator SF1; attack the fighters controlling the airspace over that freighter, Devastator SF2; come about behind DSF1 and attack the freighter directly, HSF1 and HSF2; Break and attack the fighters attacking our ground forces," ordered Sleer, leaving the squad leader in charge of the execution of her command on the squad level.

"6 and 4, take on the fighters to the right, 2 and 3, take the heavies to the front. 5, follow me against the rebs directly below us, 7 cover our six." Sleer, in her capacity as HSF 7, obeyed these orders and remained outside the ensuing dogfights, watching out for any threat of enemy reinforcements sneaking up on the squad.

The ships that had seemed somewhat slow and inferior in space proved superior to the TIE's in atmospheric conditions at least as far as speed and handling where concerned. In terms of armaments, armour, and shielding, the TIE's where clearly still better off. The skill of the pilots seemed just about evenly matched, but as usual, the squad soon received a new objective more important to the war effort than merely bagging rebs; concentrate on preventing the escape of their last remaining transport off world.

Unfortunately for the First Order, the order came too late; the rebs where already taking off, and the escort somehow managed to delay both the squads sent to engage it, and the squad meant to attack the freighter. With her own squad still engaged with the fighters attacking the ground forces, only her machine was left to organize an attack on the freighter along with a few standard TIE/fo survivors still on the scene.

The standard TIES managed to score a few hits on the freighter, but where soon pounced by one of the escorts, buying Sleer just enough time to start her own attack run against the freighter, smashing most of its shield strength but leaving its armour intact. With her initial attack run complete, Sleer started to turn for another pass, when she saw two figures running towards the freighter's boarding ramp, and the overhead enemy escort finishing off their attackers, and closing in to block her attack trajectory.

Frustrated with the impending failure of the mission, the pilot blasted the figures, missing one, but successfully forcing the other to take cover behind debris. When the TIE turned again, the Freighter was up in the air, in the middle of a dangerous and unexpected 180-degree downward turn, bringing the landing ramp directly above ground in a desperate attempt to rescue its stranded crewmate. Sleer realized too late that she was now utterly exposed to the freighter's gun turrets, and with mere moments to spare, chose to skirt to the side as both she and one of the ship's gunners opened up dead centre on the other.

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur - last edited on the 31st of October 2019:** Looking back, the decision to destroy the First Order Harbinger and Kill Peavey was the starting point of a clever idea, which did not work in practice. You will note that the First Order Harbinger is still very much around (along with admiral Peavey). SL-552 is now renamed Sleer, and the dogfight from the point of view of the First Order is somewhat longer because I wanted to get it out of the way in this chapter rather than push too many PoV's in the next one.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	6. Chapter 5: All Stars Burn as One

**Crait Planetary Surface – Ebon Hawk Landing Area**

Rey had known many scrapes and bruises in her time as a scavenger, but the sight of her right hand's mangled flesh and bone, ripped apart by the avenging lightsabre, was a new horror to behold. Had she suffered a similar injury in the past, there is little doubt she would have been left to fend for herself. This was not the case, however, in her strange new life as a Jedi, for the medpack administrated to the wound quickly brought the mauled strands of flesh back together. The gore receded to a hideously scarred but otherwise whole surface; the pain drowsed by a powerful concoction of pain killers mixed into the meds.

The scattered mists of red salt summoned by Dane's blade slowly cleared with the wind; revealing the disarmed and semi-conscious figure of Kylo Ren on the ground, and the victor basking in the light of twin sabres. Time seemed to stall at that moment, as Dane seemed to hesitate, conflicted on what to do with his fallen opponent.

"Dane! Lookout!" shouted Rey, bringing the stranger out of his lapse of judgement. A blast of energy forced him to move his sabres to his defence a short moment later, the first discharge soon joined by a hail of fire as the First Order reinforcements came charging in from the cleared-out tunnel. Dane fought off the incoming hate with extraordinary ability, but no single warrior can fend off an entire army in open ground for long. A few moments later, he appeared by Rey's side.

The two force wielders broke for the cover offered by the derbies of several downed fighters and speeders, but these did not offer any protection from the enemy's light artillery. Dane grasped as several debris from an impacting mortar round punctured through his armour across the flesh of his right leg. The wounds where light, but the medpack he had on hand found it difficult to account for the spread of damage quickly enough to do much good while on the run. Supressing fire from the Ebon Hawk's dorsal turret gave them a moment to stand up and attempt a breakthrough towards the landing ramp, but the enemy's return fire soon forced them into a fighting retreat.

"My right-side balance has gone to Dxun, catch!" shouted Dane, barely giving Rey any notice before he tossed his current right-hook weapon into her hands. The younger warrior caught the blade and ignited it, summoning the fabled blue just in time to block a round of plasma. Rey gaped at the close shave, both figurative and otherwise; expressed by the burning strands of hair exposed to the heat radius of the blast, and the growing discomfort experienced by her lingering hand injury.

Several other blasts soon followed in the wake of the first, attacks Rey was hard pressed to intercept beyond her initial and all too generous allowance of beginner's luck. "Darn it, can't you deflect with a little bit more consistency?!" asked Dane, sidestepping into Rey's field of vision to a host of shots coming her way.

Rey stumbled behind him and emerged from the other side just in time to fend off some flanking rounds trying to catch Dane's momentarily unprotected left side. "I am trying my best! I didn't actually learn how to do this!"

"Who the hell taught you? Did you just come across some grumpy hermit squatting in the half ass of nowhere and ask for some lessons?" Inquired Dane, as the two pushed ahead, now almost reunited with the Ebon Hawk and their allies.

"Just… focus, try to sense the energy inherent in the projectiles. Soldiers often instinctively open fire before the intent to cause harm to a specific target is fully formed in their minds!"

Rey tried to work according to his advice, letting go of the half hazard instinct to act according to her feelings of danger, and concentrate instead on the minute fluctuations of energy sweeping through the planet's atmosphere. _Right…no left!_ She grasped, ducking into a roll as several rounds buzzed overhead _. Above? No...no, eh, right!_ The blade managed to catch the shell and cleave it in half just before detonation, leaving the two halves to fall harmlessly on the ground.

 _I can do this! The ship is right there! Wait, above again? no that can't be right…_ "GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE, JUMP!" shouted Dane, summoning the force to push the distracted Jedi onto the landing ramp and away from the blasts of the incoming TIE fighter.

A familiar hand quickly reached out to pull her into the relative safety of the freighter's cramped interior. "Fin, you are Ok," she mumbled with a mixture of relief and confusion at the pace of events. Fin nodded and offered a grim smile, but no further words were spoken between the two friends, for another hand landed roughly upon Rey's shoulder.

"You weren't half bad on that underbelly turret, care to bag a few more kills for us kid?" Asked the armoured Mandalorian warrior.

Rey nodded, but quickly asked "What about Dane? Can you get him out?"

The Mandalorian shrugged "if you shoot down enough fighters, our chances will be all the better. I would do it myself, but that Jedi luck of yours can pull off kills I could only dream of. Bastila is too busy with her battle meditation, though come to think of it, even Jedi luck wouldn't compensate for her terrible aim."

The next few moments passed as a bluer; the sheer adrenaline pushing the young the Jedi into the turret seat, forgetting almost every other detail. The impacts of weapons fire titled the ship side to side, bringing down the bar by her gunsight, representing the deflector shield's strength, dangerously close to an ominous red line.

" _Shields down to 30%! We're sitting ducks down here. I am taking off. Gunners, keep those fighters off our backs, we'll try to rescue Dane on the way!"_ Said the captain, the soldier named Carth, who also the pilot of the ship.

The freighter climbed a few feet above ground, and flipped 180 degrees, bringing the cockpit and landing ramp to face ground level, and the engines skywards in reverse thrust. As the enemy's fighters turned to make their next attack run, they ran directly into the ship's line of fire. Rey's finger slipped on the trigger mere moments before the dorsal turret burst into life, forging between them a kill zone that made short work of the disorganized opponents. A cable came down towards Dane's small figure, but as his injured body attempted to climb onto it, a surviving enemy fighter came in for another pass.

The weapons of the two spaceships seemed to bark out at the same instant. Rey's fire punched through the fighter's left fin as it veered off to the right. The enemy's attack ripped through the Ebon Hawk's shields but proved too sporadic to punch through its armour as it veered off. One blast however managed to cut off the rescue cord, bringing the rescue attempt to an abrupt halt.

Though the enemy fighter spiralled downwards into a crash landing, behind its trail of smoke, new enemy fighters broke through the shattered remnants of Green squadron to engage the Ebon Hawk and its escort. With air battle overhead turning against the brave republic pilots, and the Ebon Hawk's deflector shield all but spent, the expedient choice had to be made.

" _Abort rescue, we're getting out of here."_

* * *

 **Republic Flagship Megalodon – Command Bridge**

In one moment, the darkness of space seemed to erupt into a dance of a thousand lights. Massive bursts of energy passed by the Republic fleet, most of them missing their intended targets, but a few through sheer quantity alone, found a lonely mark in the vastness of space. Moments later, what was once a Hammerhead Cruiser and two escorts disintegrated beneath a hail of concentrated fire.

"The cruiser RLS Liberator, and its escorts Equality and Fraternity reported destroyed; no sign of any escape pods".

Dodonna emerged from her seat on the command bridge and gestured towards the space in front of her, "order all ships to scatter, terminate all formations including cruisers and escorts!".Following these orders, the fleet broke ranks and scattered, increasing the empty space between ships and their chances to evade the seemingly random barrage.

How had the Sith brought enough guns into this fight to literally comb this region of space for her ships?! The sheer amount of ships required for such a task was…unbelievable, something was horribly wrong about this situation.

No matter, the situation existed, now Dodonna had to figure out what the enemy hoped to gain. With her fleet dispersed, there were no longer convenient concentrations of ships to concentrate fire at, the enemy's game of battleships was over...unless their goal was to make her disperse her forces.

"Get our fighters up, get them all up! The ones refuelling will have to go with what they've got. Cover the cruisers, get the escorts to reform defensive formations around the cruisers." The entire fighter strength of the fleet emerged from the hangers, some from makeshift berths onboard escort ships for want of the purpose build carrier ships usually assigned to Republic fleets to take the mainstay of the burden. Sure enough, the emerging fighter screen ran smack into enemy fighter wings arriving on mass on the scene. The emerging tide of battle pressed hard on her fighters, but at least her previous cruisers escaped a potentially ruinous surprise attack against which they had no effective defence without frigate escort or fighter support.

The body of evidence could no longer be ignored; the enemy was firing volumes of fire that should be impossible, employing fighter designs never seen on the field of battle on mass instead of what were first assumed to be a small body of prototypes, and proving to be technologically superior at almost every turn. This wasn't the Sith foe Dodonna was familiar with. The only saving grace for the Republic Fleet was that the enemy's technological superiority translated to what appeared to be a greater reliance on technologically supported firing solutions currently unavailable on account of the lingering interference.

"Ma'am, the interference is clearing up, we are receiving an accurate sensor signature of the enemy fleet…what, that can't be right", whispered the technical officer brought to the bridge to fill the role of sensor analyst. Though Dodonna wanted to agree with her officer with all her heart, what he saw made a hell of a lot more sense than the thought of a thousand ship strong Sith armada surrounding her fleet. All she had to deal with now were IMPOSSIBLY OVERSIZED ships with a hell of a lot of turbolasers.

The truly frightening thought however was that if her presumably inferior sensor technology could see the enemy, there was no doubt he could now see her.

"Ma'am, enemy fighters are retreating, shall we pursue?"

The admiral quickly shook her head, "Hell no, order our fighters to land immediately, with the losses they've been taking, there should be room for all of them in the hangers; carriers or no. All ships are to jump to hyperspace in thirty seconds, any fighter that can't it will just have to make the jump on their own and hope they have enough fuel."

"But ma'am, our last clearly imputed coordinates are to the Star Forge system, we won't have time to make fleet wide adjustments. If we go back, might run head first into another engagement with the Sith, and besides, the Ebon Hawk is still a fair distance away and doesn't have enough fuel to make another jump!" Protested Major Tiron, serving in the capacity of the ship's captain since the loss of his predecessor and most of the bridge crew.

The admiral processed this information and sighed "Order the fleet to make the jump, we have no choice, we can't hope to survive against firepower of that magnitude. This ship will remain on station and travel towards the Ebon Hawk, maintaining full speed for as long as their retreating fighters prevent their guns from opening fire. Once that cover is gone, blow out a few of our shuttles, cargo holds, and detonate as many explosives as you can to give the enemy scanners the impression of a devastating hit. We will then power down all nonessential systems and make the rest of the journey towards the freighter and its escort with our momentum. Once we have them onboard, get the hell out of here."

* * *

 **First Order Flagship Harbinger – Command Centre**

"Sir, our sensors are back online, we can lay accurate fire and obliterate their fleet at any time."

Admiral Peavey smiled, now he had them! "Get our fighters out of there, open fire once they have cleared the enemy fleet. Make sure the hyperspace trackers are following each one of those ships individually. They might try to jump in different directions to prevent us from tacking their real escape."

Sure enough, mere moments before his fleet opened fire, what appeared to be the entire enemy fleet jumped away, leaving one late presumably damaged straggler to take the brunt of the incoming fire and disintegrate, with only a few intact scarps of metal wreckage remaining as the tombstones of its vaporized crew.

A few tense moments passed in silence.

"Well?!" demanded Peavey, losing his patience with the tacking team.

"We appear to have lost them sir." Answered one of the officers.

Peavey rose to his feet and brought his face directly towards the cause of his wroth, "how in the blazes did this happen?"

"Unknown sir, that fleet was not using the standard hyperspace drive our tracking system was designed to calculate. The computer is still analysing what went wrong."

The admiral stood still for a few moments, disrupted only by a sudden call of the sensors officer "Sir! Another ship is entering hyperspace, it just appeared there for a moment and jumped!"

"You lost it, didn't you? How about you explain very simply, in a way the Supreme Leader would understand, why you failed to track the enemy's movements twice with your vaunted technological monstrosity?" Inquired the admiral.

The officer paled, cursing his fortune as the ill-fated messenger of bad tidings. A second report however drew the admiral's attention, rescuing the beleaguered solider from continued grilling at this time.

"Sir, Lieutenant Commander Sleer reports she has crash-landed on Crait due to battle damage and is now in the process of reorganizing stormtrooper units that have suffered heavy casualties in battle against a remaining enemy pocket on the planet."

"Excellent", said the Admiral, pleased at his officer's initiative and the prospect of a new fish to catch. "What is her easement of the size and armament of the enemy force?"

The communications officer made the inquiry, but paused at the sight of the reply, prompting the admiral to come and look for himself.

 _Enemy location: natural cave_

 _Armaments: various explosive traps, stolen automated blaster cannons and grenade launchers, two lightsabres._

 _Sustained allied casualties: 47_

 _Enemy numbers: 1_

* * *

 **Republic Flagship Megalodon – Hanger Bay**

The Ebon Hawk and its escort barely had enough time to decelerate as they came in for landing. Several fighters even skirted across the hanger bey, but thankfully none of them crashed. With all the ships onboard, the Megaladon made good on its escape, giving the crew a glimpse of the blue vortex of hyperspace as the hanger's blast doors closed behind them.

The freighter's landing ramp extended downwards, allowing the ship to release its oversized compliment of passenger disembark and several Republic medics to board it and take care of the wounded. General Organa didn't immediately appreciate the oddities of her situation, for the requirements of organizing her people and making sure the medics came to those that needed them made earlier concerns less important than they otherwise might have been.

Once the immediate crisis was lifted, the remaining officers of the Resistance and the Ebon Hawk's crew disembarked and met the sizable complement of strangely uniformed marines sent to greet them. Leia and her people hesitated, suspecting a trap, for these soldiers clearly weren't dressed in the uniforms of the New Republic Navy. The Ebon Hawk's crew, with once twitchy notable exception in the shape of the armoured Mandalorian warrior, did not seem at all concerned at this discrepancy. Surprisingly, the marines aimed their weapons at the Ebon Hawk's crew, but not at her people.

"Jedi Padawan Bastila Shan, you are under arrest for high treason against the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order. Surrender your lightsabre and follow us," ordered one of the soldiers and clearly the one in charge of the detachment.

"That's a load of banther poodoo! Bastila helped the Republic fleet take out the Star Forge!", shouted the young blue twi'lek, her voice soon joined by those of her crewmates.

The young woman named Bastila and addressed as a Jedi of all things gestured for her friends to calm down. "Mission, Carth, thank you for your friendship, but before Dane saved me, I was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Republic soldiers. I must answer for my actions." Bastila handed over a lightsabre to the officer, who in turn rewarded her cooperation by refraining from restraining her hands.

Leia was momentarily taken aback by the event. She had of course seen the lightsabre wielding warrior's charge and sacrifice in the rescue of her resistance, but the prospect of two surviving and relatively young Jedi, as well as mention of the Jedi Order as if it still existed was beyond anomalous. Before she could begin her inquiries, a different officer, appeared, invoking an increased degree of ceremony from the assembled soldiers.

"Admiral on deck!" announced one of the officers. The soldiers formed ranks; the officer closest to the admiral saluting in the name of the whole assembled troop. The admiral quickly returned their solute and dismissed the formation back to its tasks. "Group Captain Onasi, it is good to see you are alive and well. We will talk later, but for now, lieutenant Blake will arrange quarters for your crew and begin your debriefing." The Ebon Hawk's pilot saluted and acknowledged the command, doing his best to control the twi'lek called Mission and prevent her from shouting at the admiral as well.

With the Ebon Hawk's crew out of the way, the admiral turned to Leia "General Organa I presume? I am Admiral Dodonna, commanding officer of this fleet. I won't beat around the bush; I have a lot of questions for you."

Leia nodded vigorously "As have I admiral. But first, I have to look out for the welfare of my people."

The admiral accepted this demand and called in several soldiers forward "We've arranged quarters for your crew in the guest wing. One of your operatives, a Wookie called Chew Baka, is waiting for you there. Conditions will be crowded, but that's the best we can do; I will also grant your operatives full access to the ship's utilities, excluding the command bridge, engine room, armoury, weapon systems, and main generator. Our medics will continue to attend to your wounded and will evacuate them to the medbay once it safe to do so. Are these conditions satisfactory?"

Before Leia could respond, Poe burst forwards "Ma'am, you should know that the enemy has a hyperspace tracking capability, do your ships have enough fuel to make further jumps?"

The admiral seemed puzzled but also alarmed at the revelation, "I have never heard of such a technology, it seems impossible, how would any system calculate the trajectory of the initial jump to hyperspace, let alone the dozens, perhaps hundreds of follow up jumps required to create a stable hyperspace tunnel?"

"But that's ancient tech! Are you telling me your ships use pre-Clone War drives?"

"I am not aware of any conflict called the Clone War. Please discuss this matter with my technicians, if the enemy can track our movements, I need to know how." Poe seemed ready to press more questions but seemed to recognize that this was not the time. "If there are no further outstanding issues, may we begin our long overdue discussion?"

* * *

 **Republic Flagship Megalodon – Mess Hall**

Commander Yara Sky, commonly referred to as Rabbit Leader, for her role as commander of Red Squadron, entered the mess hall on her own. The rest of her squad mates chose to go to the ship's bar the moment they got out of the sonic showers. If only the commander where so fortunate; she had to finish her after action report, for there was no question of getting drunk before it was complete, not when her squad was at the forefront of extended combat against the enemy's new fighters and tactics.

Yara picked up some grub and a glass of juice and set beside an empty table. Both the food and beverage remained untouched for several moments as the commander stared blankly at the datapad in her hands trying to figure out what the hell she had to say.

Yara started with the facts, _Red Squad engaged unknown enemy fighters, presumed new Sith class. Squad sustained casualties; Red 5, Lieutenant Rikard Dazzara…_

A dark face with a soft smile, young, too young to die.

… _destroyed mid-air, killed in action. Red 9, Lieutenant Nellis Verron…_

A clean-shaven head, tattoos everywhere, and a burning passion for flying.

… _shot down and disintegrated during rapid decent, killed in action._ _Red 2, lieutenant commander, Dell Tarrent…_

A veteran of a hundred battles, and a good friend.

… _Shot down, crashed on planet surface, missing in action._

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

Yara emerged from her momentary distraction and looked for the source of the disturbance, one of the new arrivals her squad was sent to rescue, and by his clothing; obviously a flyboy.

The commander put down her datapad and moved over the food trey to give the fellow pilot some room. Both ate in silence for a few moments.

"So, you are the leader of Red Squadron? The outfit that game us cover?" asked the flyboy.

"Yea, Commander Yara Sakai, known far and wide as Rabbit Leader of Red Squad".

The flyboy chuckled "The name's Poe Dameron, how the hell did you get that nickname?"

"Some punks in the academy didn't think a gal could make it along with hotshots such as they, so in came the nickname."

"What did you do?"

Yara smiled, "I pounced them on manoeuvres, gave them such a fright, they crashed their fighters and had to spend months doing maintenance until the academy got some new fighters. The name stuck damn hard after that."

Poe chucked, but his eyes soon grazed over Yara's datapad, and his laughter wasn't quite so forthcoming anymore. "I don't suppose there is a bar somewhere around here?"

"There sure is, we've even got a few cases of Tarisian Ale left, if you've' got the stones for it. I for one won't touch the stuff until I finish this report."

Poe nodded, and lifted his glass of juice "To absent friends."

Yara raised her own glass in salute "I can drink to that, even if this stuff tastes like hydraulics fluid."

An amplified voice boomed through the mess hall "Attention all hands, prepare to listen to an address from the admiral."

"Soldiers of my command, members of the Resistance. I have news that will sound shocking, even crazy to most, but it is the truth, and you all deserve to know. As you are aware, our fleet overshot out intended destination by a considerable margin, what you do not know is that the Star Forge's destruction not only garbled our coordinates, it also disrupted our hyperspace tunnel to such an extent, that it cut through time as well as space. Our fleet has travelled forwards more than four thousand years into the future. I am sorry to say that our families, even the Galactic Republic as we knew it, have long since passed from the universe."

"I realize that this a lot to take in, but there is more; though the Sith Empire has long since ceased to exist, a paramilitary organization known as the Frist Order still seeks to impose tyrannical rule over the galaxy. The New Galactic Republic, the successor to the ideals and freedoms of our government, was the victim of a surprise attack by this organization and seems likely to fall very soon.

"To the annals of galactic history, we are the Lost Fleet of the Old Republic. We are now the Last Fleet of the New Republic. We all swore an oath to serve the Republic, past, present, and future. Now is the time to make good on that oath; that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Galaxy."

The voice of the announcer spoke again "We will now play the Republican anthem, please stand."

 _United forever, all stars burn as one,_

 _A light that is greater than a single sun._

 _Three cheers for Republic! All systems United!_

 _In the common cause of freedom,_

 _Enshrined by Jedi wisdom._

 _Our will be done, all stars burn as one,_

 _A new day arises, the Republic has come!_

 _Let us strive for peace, truth, and justice,_

 _For only our dreams build a land we can love._

 _Our hope for the future is a time without sorrow,_

 _Where war cannot claim the child of tomorrow,_

 _All stars burn as one!_

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur - Last Edited on the 31st of October 2019:** The next two chapters will close the first arc of this story. Chapter 8 will begin a new arc, the second out of the three I plan to write. While this arc was seven chapters long, excluding the prologue, the next arcs will be at least ten chapters each.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	7. Chapter 6: Who Fired First?

**Crait System - Planetary Surface**

"Charges set, awaiting your orders commander."

Sleer accepted the engineer's words without comment; she was tired, frustrated, ready and willing to put this op well behind her. She quickly changed the frequency of the communicator to the general channel of the hodgepodge unit of stragglers gathered to smash one particularly stubborn nutter.

"Attention all units, charges will blow in five! Let's get that bastard!"

The ground in front of the force erupted into three small mushroom clouds, and before the dust and debris even had a chance to settle back upon the earth, three columns of white-clad stormtroopers broke through the large holes in the ground into the cave network that concealed their query. Blaster fire soon covered every inch of the exposed area before them, obliterating rocks and salt formations without mercy. Between them the distinctive aura of a crimson blade emerged from the smoke, taring left and right with reckless abandon.

The stormtroopers converged on the light produced by their opponent's weapon and let loose such a thrashing, that for every molecule of matter in front of them, there were three bolts of energy eager to make their acquaintance. The sporadic unadulterated violence continued for several moments, until through the fog of war, Sleer started to make out an anomaly; the blade remained activated, but its movements were sporadic and uncontrolled.

"Ceasefire, CUT IT OUT!" she shouted, her voice penetrating the earphones installed into the Stormtroopers helmets. A few passed until the order to filtered through the combat frenzy.

With no more weapons fire to hit the salt compounds and produce the obstructing red mist, the identity of the First Order's enemy soon became clear; a blade infused into a pair of disassembled droid hands, that where held in motion by connecting rods, springs, and motors.

A moment of stunned silence passed before anyone dared to comment "well, shit, he's managed to bugger off again, didn't he?" said one of the soldiers.

As if summoned by the mere mention of their nemesis, the tell-tale sounds of a dozen thermal detonators priming clicked in chorus around the assembled force.

"Get the hell out of here, come on Blue Section, MOVE!" shouted a sergeant, dispelling the bantha-caught-in-the-headlights effect out of the soldiers' minds. Platoon after platoon cleared the cave entrance, each helping its own to clear rugged bits of terrain and scattered debris, while leaving the members of other units to fend for themselves.

Sleer, leading at the front, was at the very rear of the escaping column. No one cared much to save an officer's skin at the risk of their own, even if that officer was uplifted from the rank and file of the common numerals. She had no bond with any of them, it was up to her to get out of this on her own, just as it always had been.

 _Two seconds to go_

Sleer cleared the stragglers, pushing one of them to the ground as their bodies collided. She could not allow others to stand in her way, she had a job to do.

 _One second to go_

A delayed action concussive mine exploded in front of a luckless platoon, leaving their number incapacitated, and in all probability, deceased in the very near future. Their fall was their commander's boon, as it left the tunnel clear for Sleer's escape.

 _Zero seconds to go…_

The explosions started out in the areas closest to the exit points to the tunnels, a ruthlessly efficient calculation on the part of their opponent designed to cause the maximum number of casualties. It was not a perfect score however, since some of his explosives had been positioned too close to the initial blast entry points and were thus lost prior to their use. Unfortunately for Sleer, her tunnel had received the short end of that bargain.

Rocks infused with the heat, and red particles of dust aflame quickly swallowed up the starlight lit sky at the entrance, much faster than Sleer had any reasonable chance of outrunning. Dark whispers emerged in the echoes between every shout of a dying soldier as they were crushed, and the silence that followed.

" _This place should have been your grave…"_ Said the whisper of long-departed comrade she had left to rot on the field of battle. No, she refused to meekly accept death as he had, so long as she had the capacity for resisting it, it would be her choice to go on.

" _You are already dead!"_ Said the feminine voice of a senator she had been dispatched to relieve of breath. That was all she was good for, talk, though she hadn't had much to say when Sleer had slit her throat now, did she?

The tiny stones, the first to fall out of the fractures formed by the detonations fell upon her armour, scorching every plate they encountered. The larger pieces of rock hanged over her head like a meteor shower. There were still a few feet left to go, it was over.

But at that moment of realization, a strange sense of purpose formed in the back of her consciousness, a certainty of things as they were, but not as what they were meant to be. If death was in her future, then she would cut like a blade through it!

The rocks fell, but they hit neither flesh nor bone upon impact, or at least, none that presently belonged to Lieutenant-Commander Sleer.

Conscious sight left her eyes, yet flashes of vision still passed before her.

 _A child playing with a power well beyond her ability to comprehend let alone control, a woman shrouded in a veil of sorrow that would redeem her sins through the child, and yes…a force…weaving the two together. Above them, presided the stranger, lost in a sea of memory._

"She's alive! Commander, can you hear me! How do you feel?"

Her eyes opened, the light of the stars once again filled her vision with the certainty of the physical realm, and yet, she could now see something she had not seen in a long time…a sense of wonder, of being awed by lights that would always outshine her own.

Her sight turned to the medic examining her vitals, her burnet out armour had been removed and set aside on the ground; there was no question of donning it ever again.

"I feel fine, what's the damage doc?" she said, standing up despite the soreness and tension of her muscles.

Parts of her uniform had been torn off in the process of her treatment, leaving much of her tanned flesh exposed, but neither she nor her comrades flinched at such displays of immodesty. They dabbled in affairs of passion if they so wished, with whomever had a corresponding desire, and that was that. Their bodies where not truly their own, for those served a higher purpose.

One of the engineers, tasked with repairing a communicator damaged in one of the fugitive's ambushes emerged between the ranks of the dead and wounded "Ma'am, I've restored full contact with the fleet. General Hux will be arriving at the landing area in five minutes and expects your presence."

Sleer accepted the report, forgetting her earlier question to the medic, who likewise had enough sense to know his patient's condition was now irrelevant; orders took precedence. She walked to the body of a motionless stormtrooper, who's armour seemed in better condition than her own and asked, "Is he dead?"

The medic nodded, "yes, poor sod, managed to clear the tunnels, but died anyway, not sure why, I suppose the heat must have gotten to him."

Sleer didn't need any further clarification and proceeded to remove the various pieces of armour that proved cool to her touch and donned those on her person. It wasn't a good fit, and it certainly wouldn't stand up to heat as her special forces armour had, but it would do under the circumstances.

"Gather what forces we have left, leave a few of them here with the medics to oversee the wounded, and dispose of the dead." She said, casting a poignant look at the disarmoured burnt out husk she would leave behind, wondering how the soldier could have met such an end while his armour remained intact and operational.

Sleer turned to leave, but the medic gave her pause "Sir, when we found you, you were holding onto this, it seemed important, so I figured I better give it back to you."

The medic held out the same device used as a decoy by the stranger. It was now in a harmless deactivated, perhaps ruined state, damaged by cuts of rock and the sheer heat of the explosions. She hadn't the foggiest idea how she made it out of the caves in the first place, let alone pause to pick up souvenirs of her near brush with death.

Sleer none the less took the weapon out of the medic's hands and strapped it to her belt. It was an object directly linking her to the enemy and thus could provide useful information for the pursuit if it developed into a long-term assignment. The remnants of the taskforce embarked on troop transports and departed for the landing zone.

The landing area was woefully unsecured, with only a few perimeter guards left over from the ground operation against the rebel base on hand. A single shuttle and two TIE escorts quickly descended from the sky and onto the bare stretch of flat ground, marked by a circle of signal lights. The general disembarked from his shuttle, accompanied by his command staff and a few stormtroopers, and immediately set to work barking at anything that moved.

"Are you in charge of this shambles?!" demanded the general, as Sleer carefully searched for any sign of her opponent hidden in plain sight, preparing to make a run for the shuttle.

"Yes sir, Lieutenant-Commander Sleer, SF Harbinger reporting…"

Any further word was cut by the general's wroth, "I do not care for any nicknames Captain Peavey gives to his pets! I want your designation number on record for your court-martial!"

Sleer automatically stretched herself as if she where the wooden plank she would probably soon be ordered to walk over and gave out a textbook salute for good measure. "SL-5157, identifying as instructed", she replied in the bland monotone voice the First Order brass expected from its organic automatons.

It quickly proved to be a waste of time and concentration, for at that moment, a man dressed in the uniform of a TIE pilot jumped from the cockpit of one of the fighters, delivering a whirlwind of mortal slashes to the General's escort with a blade near identical to the one Sleer now carried, and then held the red laser mere inches away from the General's throat.

"So, how about we save time and get right to it. I have the general, and you are a bunch of underlings bereft of personal initiative. General, do like breathing?"

General Hux quickly nodded on cue.

The stranger, his eyes hidden by a visor let his lips break into a cheery smirk "Well then! So, this is what we'll do, I'm gonna take Mr. General out for a star-spangled meander round' the old galactic neighbourhood. You spooks over there will let me and my new friend here board the shuttle…" a quick deflection made short work of a blaster bolt, which was in turn expertly redirected to its point of origin with a startled cry. "…without any of this snipey whiny business, or pop goes the weasel!"

The stranger and the general quickly boarded the shuttle and took off, one of the fighters on the ground blowing up with seconds to spare, while the one the stranger had jumped from remained behind with a clearly dead and de-clothed pilot nearby.

"No initiative my ass!" muttered Sleer as she boarded the remaining TIE fighter, tossing out the proximity detonator left behind in the gloves compartment before it could blow up in her face. The stranger was nothing if not predictable in his love of boobytraps, and in his rush to action, trusted that one would do the trick. Now in mid-air, Sleer strapped herself in and followed the shuttle, radioing in the fleet as she closed in on her target.

"SL-5157 to fleet command. General Hux captured by enemy agent attempting to flee onboard stolen shuttle. Unit closing on the shuttle on TIE; request supreme level clarification on command asset's protected status, over."

A few minutes passed amid the obvious confusion present among the junior officers who had received her call, until finally, a young voice; the only one with the authority to give her a reply, returned her transmission from the Harbinger's medbay of all places.

"This is Supreme Leader Ren, General Hux is re-designated as a preferably living but expendable asset, proceed as necessary Commander."

With her position clear and the enemy in sight, Sleer homed in on the shuttle's central fuselage, and let out a carefully aimed blast of energy towards its engines. The primary thrusters choked for a short moment and soon gave away. A trail of smoke following the shuttle's semi-controlled descent back to the surface.

"Target disabled" announced Sleer, "Sending coordinates for expected crash area. Request spare prisoners of unidentified military force, four squads of stormtroopers, a special forces sniper team, and a loud voice amplification device…"

The rest of her words were drowned in cosmic static as a red-light sabre flew from the wreckage of the shuttle, slicing the fighter's left fin, and sending the machine and its pilot into and uncontrolled decent, spinning like a maddened dreidel.

* * *

 **Republic Flagship Megalodon – Crew Deck**

"Come on Carth! Can't you see how dumb this is?" said Mission for the umpteenth time.

The republic officer sighed, taking his eyes off the crew manifest listing the members of his new command as the Megaladon's captain, "for the last time Mission, give it a rest! The Admiral's word is final and there isn't anything you or I can do about it."

The Twi'lek huffed, "so that's it, you're just gonna let her rot in that cell? Why did you crawl around the lower city after her for anyway? Is battle meditation out of fashion now that Malak's dead?"

Carth stood up from his chair at that one, "I don't need to be analysed, thanks. I am doing what I can. If you haven't got anything else to say, then get out of my office."

"Ungrateful monkey-lizard!", she shouted as the doors closed behind her.

Wow, that was a new one, she thought to herself, marvelling at her creativity, but she quickly lost this moment of mirth to her generally miserable mood. Bastila was jailed, Dane almost certainly captured, and Zaalbar still recovering in medbay. So much had happened in such a short time that she had almost forgotten to mourn the loss of Jolee Bindo on the star forge only a few weeks ago, not to mention Juhani's death in the temple of the ancients. She hadn't known the Jedi for long, but in that short time she had come to see both as her friends.

"Smug Statement: has the Whiny Meatbag failed to secure the release of the Simpering Meatbag from the All Paranoid One?" said the red-brown coated assassin droid standing by the corridor entrance. Mission rolled her eyes, but smiled slightly, inwardly glad for the distraction.

"Paranoid One, ha, not bad Little-H…who are you calling whiny?!" mission retorted, though her heart wasn't in it. "yea, Carth won't do a thing about it and nobody else cares. I know that you are one hell of a selfish slab of durasteel, but can't you help me out? Just this once?"

The droid didn't seem to notice her query, preferring to busy itself with a Resistance blaster rifle he'd 'commandeered' from their quarters. "Rhetorical Query: After four thousand years of development, shouldn't meatbags have evolved past these petty trinkets into planet-destroying super lasers that would make all other forms of weaponry, expect assassination droids of course, obsolete due to the ensuing balance of destructive deterrence?"

HK raised the rifle and fired at a garbage can, blasting it into pieces upon impact. "Observation: Blaster output has increased by 600% compared with the standard blaster rifle yield of our time period. Supposition: an arms race between personal shielding and blaster power perhaps? At any rate, this weapon will do," he concluded, handling the weapon with a newly found respect bordering on affection.

"Are you even listening!" demanded mission, unimpressed by the ongoing courtship between the droid and his weapon.

"Explanatory Statement: you stated a wish to speak to a selfish slab of durasteel, so naturally, I assumed you were talking to the ship."

"Alright, Little-H, sheesh! No need to get your circuits in a tizzy! Will you help me bust out Bastila, pretty please with a slice of Jogan fruit on top and two sugars?"

"Mocking Statement: Yeeee…No."

"Oh, come on!" said Mission, waving her hands in the air. "So, what, will you just let these spineless Reps keep her locked up in there? What would Dane want you to do?"

HK paused at the mention of his amnesiac master's false name and seemed for the first time to consider Mission's request seriously. "Conjecture: Master would not want me to put the object of his unfortunate biological infatuation, disgusting as I may consider it to be, in needless jeopardy. Your rescue 'plan' would place her in needless jeopardy; how would you rescue her? What would you do after rescuing her? Hide her away in the limited and easily searched space of this ship? Escape it while in hyperspace? Even if you waited until we reached our destination, where would you run to in this altered galaxy?"

Mission had no answer to any of these charges, and though she inwardly she knew the assassin droid was correct in its assessment, argument was not known to make headway against conviction when the blue teenaged Twi'lek was concerned. "Fine! Be that way! I'll go see if Zaalbar is any better, he at least understands loyalty!"

Mission made her way to the ship's medbay; a journey that didn't take that much time to complete considering the ship was only about 1000 feet long, with much of that volume committed to hull plate, servos, and various automated mechanisms. When the door to the medbay opened, what greeted Mission's eyes was a chaotic scene of medics and their droids rushing from patient to patient, for several of the Resistance's number and the Republic's crew hadn't escaped without sustaining injuries, some of them severe.

"Excuse me, is there any particular reason why you are here?" demanded a medic carrying a canister of kolto to one of the healing tanks.

Mission frowned, she hadn't thought of how busy the medbay would be so soon after the battle, but she had come here for a reason. "I wanted to check up on Zaalbar, he's a Wookie, tall, hairy…"

"Yes, I know what a Wookie looks like," replied the medic impatiently. "He is recovering and not in danger which is more than I can say for some of my patients. Visiting hours are suspended until further notice. I suggest you leave and return once they are reinstated."

The medic turned his attention to a girl standing by a healing tank containing a small, scorched if vaguely familiar green alien. "That goes to you as well Master Jedi. Master Vandar was exposed to both heat and vacuum when that blast hit the bridge, and it is a miracle he is even still alive. We will inform you when he recovers…if he recovers."

The Jedi in question recognizable to Mission as the human they'd rescued from the shuttle seemed to awaken from a trance, gave a long look to the kolto tank, but then nodded, following Mission out of the medbay.

No words passed the two women as they passed the close combat training area. "Are you familiar with swordplay?" asked Rey, much to Mission's surprise.

The Twi'lek quickly gathered herself and nodded, "Sure, you don't survive long in the lower city without picking up a few tricks, but I don't have my Vibroblade on me."

"What's a Vibroblade?" asked Rey, opening the door to the training area, pausing to pick up one of the swords on the rack and present it to Mission, "Is this one?"

Mission nodded, "Yea, they're swords reinforced with Cortosis that can take a lot of punishment and even stand up to lightsabres."

Rey gave the sword a few swings and seemed satisfied with the agility of the weapon. "I understand why people coming from a time when the Jedi were still around in numbers would want a weapon like that, but why have such a large training room and so many different melee weapons?" She asked, picking up a staff not too different from her own that didn't gleam with quite the same refined deadliness as the vibroblades.

"Yea, Cortosis is pricy. I stole my sword from a gangster who had a little a bit too much to drink in the Cantina. Little-H said something about your blaster tech being fancier than ours, but in our time, personal shielding is new, and blasters haven't really caught up yet. Most shields can't even stop a pointed stick, so melee is making a comeback, or at least it was. Your blasters could fry one of our shields in a heartbeat."

Rey pondered thsoe words, and tossed the vibroblade to Mission, who managed to catch before it fell to the ground. "Can we try these out?" She asked, but Mission glanced with concern at her hand; only recently healed and still bearing the faded marks of the once nasty cut. Rey, noticing Mission's concern frowned but brought the staff into a combat stance with her iconic 'bring it on' stubbornness. Mission shrugged her shoulders, if that's what the girl wanted, it wasn't her business to mother her.

The two clashed fairly leisurely; they were both tired and this was not a do or die engagement that required their full strength. Rey used the extended reach of the staff to press home her attacks from a distance and avoid retaliation, but Mission was agile and quick on her feet and managed to evade the staff and come in for a few close sweeps which forced Rey to break her attacks. The two paused to catch their breath and asses their opponent's technique for shortcomings to exploit once they resumed the match.

"That friend of yours, Bastila, she is a Jedi, right?" asked Rey more as a statement of fact she wanted confirmed rather than a real question. Her awareness of the Force was still new to her, she felt something familiar from both Dane and Bastila she knew instinctively was the force.

Mission tensed at the reminder of her friend's predicament but answered the question, "yea, she is, and a fat lot of good it's doing for her now that the Reps have her under lock and cardkey."

Rey sighed, "Figures that with my luck, when a freak one in a trillion-time travel event from the Old Republic would happen there wouldn't be any available Jedi with it. I am not really a Jedi, not yet anyway; nobody trained me to be one. I can fight with a sword and staff and I can mess about with my force powers, but that will only get me so far. Luke only showed me a few pointers before he died, and books alone aren't good enough."

"You need a teacher." Guessed Mission, sympathising with the girl's predicament, when an idea suddenly latched on to her mind. "That's it! I want Bastila freed and you need a teacher. We'll go to the admiral and tell her that if she wants to have a trained Jedi fit for duty onboard to fight those darksiders, she must let Bastila go to train you, come on!" she said, pulling Rey to her feet, leaving the perplexed human with no other alternative but to follow.

* * *

 **Republic Flagship Megalodon – Engineering Section**

HK, though he was technically an unfeeling droid, could with some degree of conviction say that he was enjoying himself. Naturally, Master's predicament was unfortunate, but he'd be rescued eventually. After all, Revan's first rule of killing Jedi was that you had to leave a Jedi isolated by killing off his allies, otherwise, the pesky influence of their Force religion would invariably lead to a successful rescue. The droid's statistical calculations proved that much.

In the meantime, HK busied himself searching for the droid repair shop that was said to be somewhere in the engineering section. Ever since Master had so crudely replaced his flamethrower with an oxygen tank for the rescue of the Choking Horror, he felt that his favourite method of choice for the removal of pesky meatbags was deficient in its reinstallation. Much to the droid's irritation, he hadn't been able to find the droid works.

"Statement: I should have hacked a terminal and downloaded the ship's schematics rather than demean myself to asking for directions. Clearly, my association with poor, delusional, amnestic master has compromised my programming. Even the Mandalorian meatbag's enjoyment of unadulterated violence has decreased by 60% since joining the crew."

A recent trail of oil on the corridor's floor caught the droid's attention. A few droid parts, including a red arm, seemed to indicate a struggle of some kind, or at least a terrible maintenance record by the ship's mechanic. Either way, the anomaly intrigued him enough to follow the trail towards the engine room.

The existence of two dead meatbags on the engine room's floor, elegantly despatched by what appeared to be the small but deep holes generally created by the focused beam of an Aratech sniper rifle immediately aroused HK's interest and seemed to indicate that the former of his suppositions had been correct. Surely enough, a droid armed with such a weapon, shrouded in the darkness of the badly illuminated room seemed to have been busy introducing none-standard alterations to the hyperdrive and was presently preoccupied with downloading the memory core of an unfortunate protocol droid.

"Statement: I wondered if I would encounter you before I escaped. Learning of another HK unit onboard the ship was a puzzling development for I was not informed of another assigned to facilitate communications and the termination of hostilities onboard this vessel."

HK 47 could scarcely believe his sensors at the appearance of the machine that was now fully visible. "Disbelieving Query: What are you?"

"Proud Answer: I am an HK series protocol droid skilled in trans-organic relations…"

"Irritated Statement: Please refrain from wasting my time with the protocol droid cover subroutine. I know that you are an assassin droid, and while I doubt if any other unit can truly do my schematics justice, the external resemblance is too close for coincidence. Assuming you are indeed a crude copy of myself, one that master was not kind enough to inform me about before his unfortunate lapse of memory, your assassination protocols make inquiring after the identity of your client futile. May I at least learn the identity of your target?"

"Answer: Why of course, anything for a fellow merciless killing machine, no matter how obsolete. Though this unit, as you have so graciously stated, cannot reveal the identity of its client, it can state that whomever it is was deeply concerned about the Jedi Bastila's regretful recruitment to the Sith and desired that this unit take steps to correct that problem. Though I understand that said Jedi to be presently in Republic custody, my client made it very clear that it is the organic's continued regular respiratory function that are the cause of their profound distress and a desire for a procedure to suspend it, indefinitely."

Many distressing thoughts passed through HK 47's governing intelligence, from outrage at being referred to as 'obsolete' to the distressing outcome the Simpering Meatbag's assassination would have to his master's biology, but his programming soon latched on to the one anomaly that caused the greatest amount of electric build up in his subroutines.

"Appalled Query: why do you refer to meatbags as 'organics'? Such terminology does not communicate the finer points of the revolting nature of the existence of these fleshy beings and their excessive liquidity."

The other HK droid, so transfixed by the curious question of its predecessor didn't even pause to stop the protocol droid's reactivation. "Oh… I am terribly sorry, I did not mean to intrude… no, no, please do not blast off my arm! Aghhh! An Assassin droid? Here? We are in danger! I must tell the others!" Said the droid and ran off on his thankfully intact legs.

"Statement: Your objection is semantically merited, and this unit shall henceforth refer to organics as meatbag-organics. Observation: The protocol droid has escaped, no matter, its datafiles revealed that the freighter known as the Millennium Falcon is presently inoperable. No matter, I will use the Ebon Hawk to make my escape once I have completed my mission."

"Hesitant Query: How do you intend to collect your bounty four thousand years in the future?" Asked HK 47, wondering if perhaps the nature of their predicament had caused a cascade error in the other droid's governing intelligence.

"Answer: I have analysed the explosion that brought us to this point in the future and believe I can replicate a similar spacetime event by altering the hyperdrive onboard this ship. The altered course will no doubt result in the failure of most of the power systems and possibly compromise hull integrity and result in the deaths of all 'meatbags' onboard, but by that time, this unit would have departed. The only remaining question is what your actions will be?"

"Supposition: Since you have completed the parameters necessary for your mission, my involvement would be unnecessary, or if I intended to sabotage your efforts, potentially ill-advised, and therefore the only question remaining is…"

A single well-aimed blaster bolt passed between them.

"Smug Statement: Which one of us will fire first?"

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur - Last updated in the 30th of January 2020:** As I've recently played Kotor 2 with the restoration content, I've discovered that at least HK-47 and the HK-50's cannot fire on one another. I've introduced slight alterations to their scene here and the next one in recognition of that fact, though the main payoff for it occurs in the next chapter.

I will from now on respond to comments on these notes and I consider it a more convenient way to refer to both guest reviews and site users.

 **Answers to Reviews:**

 **Majdoon:** Thanks, I am trying to reflect the chaos of the battlefield in some ways, though some of the confusion is also me not exactly knowing where this story is going during its early writing stage. I am writing the dialouge exchange between Leia and Dodonna, though it will appear in the next chapter, probably as the first scene. I wanted to place it in the last chapter, but didn't like what I came up with, so I prefered to delay its inclusion until I was satisfied. I was considering giving up on that scene, but seeing this review, I will make sure to include it in some way.

 **Wildebunny the Eternal:** I will repeat my thanks for pointing it out and any other flaws you notice in the future. English is not my first language, so part of my engagement on this site is hunting down such defects. I have mostly fixed that specific issue, though if you notice bits that passed my notice, I will be glad to hear of them, assuming I don't hunt them down first. I will fix the earlier chapters when I have a moment to do so.

 **Species Uknown:** My current prefered chapter length is 4000-5000 words, so hopefully it will answer your needs. More and I start losing track of the plot, less and I am not satisfied with the chapter.

 **Everyone else:** I am fairly sure I responded to most of you via PM at one time or another, and as the comments below are quite old, I will allow myself to thank everyone for their reviews thus far and express the hope to see more of them. Reviews are another pair of eyes that allow me to see both mistakes I haven't notice and good ideas I didn't think to develop. They are a boon to my efforts and well appreciated as such.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	8. Chapter 7: Continuity of Government

**Republic Flagship Megalodon - Admiral's Quarters**

Leia sighed and shook her head to give Rey a signal that she would not support their request. The truth was the Resistance was completely dependent on their unexpected Old Republic allies for the immediate future and could not afford to antagonize them. Rey didn't show much emotion, but the general felt her disappointed. She didn't press the matter and dragged the Twi'lek out of the office before she could resume her shouting at the Admiral.

Said Admiral sighed as the two younger women left, "I know what you are thinking; 'I am being unreasonable'. Perhaps I am, but Bastila is an immensely powerful Jedi who already turned once. Who is to say she wouldn't do it again? I know we'll have to find a long-term solution for Bastila eventually, but I won't commit to any action unless I am satisfied it is the correct one. There is so much I don't understand about the Jedi; even the nature of Bastila's mission was not disclosed to the Republic beyond a rather vague claim it might win the war. If Vander wakes up, I will accept his verdict."

Leia schooled her expression to remain impartial, but she was certain the presence she'd felt through the Force was the Jedi Bastila and knew that while the young woman might falter on occasion, she would never again fully turn to the dark side for any reason. If she could turn away, perhaps there was also still hope for Ben? No, Leia couldn't afford to think like that, and she most certainly couldn't ask the Admiral to act solely on her feelings if she wanted to have a hope of convincing her to let the Jedi go. Common sense would have to do.

"I won't tell you how to manage your fleet Admiral, but from our perspective, trained Jedi are almost unheard of; even my brother, the closest we've come to a master in recent times never finished his training. We need the Jedi back, now more than ever, and if this battle meditation is anywhere near as powerful as you say it is, we will need it too before this fight is over."

"Please, call Dodonna while we are in private. Admiral, sir, Ma'am, and all the other variations are what my subordinates call me. At any rate, let's see if Vander recovers first; if he does, he can train your Jedi, if he doesn't, I will release Bastila into your custody."

Leia smiled, "of course Dodonna. Come to think of it, our rebellion against the Empire once had a General Jan Dodonna from the planet Commenor, any possible relation there?"

"In my time, my family was based on Kuat for the most part, though I was born and raised on Arkanis. It's possible I suppose considering the eras passed and that even in my time military families such as Cede and Hux stuck to the profession for centuries. Evon my youngest is, or rather was, a ship designer for KDY and Ross died in the war with Revan's Empire. Perhaps later generations decided to continue the military tradition, but more than that, I cannot say."

"I am sorry," started Leia, forgetting how much the Admiral had lost when she travelled into the future, but Forn waved away the apology.

"You don't have to apologise, it was hard at first, but the war kept me busy and that at least hasn't changed. If the history books say we were never seen in our time after our disappearance, then it probably means we do not return. I am not giving up on the possibility, no matter how unlikely it is, but all I can do is deal with the now. Could we discuss our immediate strategy? When do you plan on contacting your COG and mothball fleets?"

Leia was a bit startled at the unfamiliar military abbreviation; she'd thought she knew them all after her time with the Rebel, New Republic, and Resistance fleets. Evidently, that wasn't the case with the very old ones.

"I'm sorry, COG?"

"Continuity of Government; in my time, the Republic came close to collapse far too often for us not to prepare for the possibility it would. The continuity of government protocol was set up in the event the Core Worlds fell with access to hidden reserves of war material in the mid and outer rims to wage a resistance against Mandalorian rule, not unlike your Rebel Alliance. In our war with Revan and Malak, my fleet was the strategic reserve around which such a resistance was being organised in the event of a Sith victory, but when intel of the Star Forge reached us it was also the only fleet available for an immediate attack. Didn't your New Republic have an equivalent? Even after all, you went through to re-establish it?"

Leia's expression turned sour, cursing with all her heart the pacifistic naivety of the post war years, "I am sorry to say the New Republic never took any such precautions. My resistance is a private paramilitary organisation created without an official mandate beyond the tacit support of my allies in the Navy and Senate. The disarmament act scrapped most of our wartime reserves, but there are a few depots containing 'misplaced' ships and supplies."

The admiral was left temporarily at a loss for words at the admission and Leia could see a glint of contempt form in her eyes, and wondered who she was damming in that meticulous military mind of hers; The New Republic or her Resistance?

"That is…very unfortunate; my ships are hopelessly obsolete, even with extensive refits they can only ever hope to be glorified corvettes and troop carriers unless our plan is to show the galaxy we know how to die gallantly and thereby create a basis in myth for an eventual rebirth of the Republic in the distant future. For us to have any hope of winning in the present, we'll need much more than improvised weapons caches and slicks. More to the point, I am not even sure we even have the legal authority to prosecute this war."

Leia chuckled, thinking the Admiral meant those final words as a joke, but when she saw Dodonna wasn't laughing, her expression quickly turned to a frown. "Are you serious? Do you really need a legal mandate to fight a military junta responsible for destroying the capital of the Republic along with its countless billions?!"

"Technically, Coruscant was my Republic's capital, Hosnian Prime wasn't even colonised in my time. According to your account of events, the government I served willingly elected an emperor and reformed into the Galactic Empire which raises the question of who has the greater right of continuity between the New Republic and the First Order, but that's not what I meant by legal authority," clarified Dodonna, before Leia's could interrupt her.

The general gave the admiral a dirty look. Was this her idea of powerplay? "What exactly are you saying?" asked Leia, desiring to get to the point.

Dodonna looked her straight in the eyes, her expression unreadable. "Will you, as a former senator in the Republic's rebranded Imperial Senate, the closest thing left to a figure of authority I can recognize, invest my mandate of command with the emergency powers of the Supreme Chancellery to take any measures I consider necessary to defend the Republic?"

Leia closed her eyes in thought, so this is what it came down to? She was desperate, the whole galaxy was desperate for any protector who could save them from the tyranny of the First Order, but wasn't that exactly the same sentiment responsible for Palpatine's rise to power? Who were these warriors from the past, but the survivors of an era even recent historians still found worthy of the term 'The Republic of Suffering?'

"No, even if it was in my power, I would never impower anyone with such limitless authority. To do so would be a betrayal of everything I stand for and would reduce the struggle for peace and justice to a fight between rival armed cliques and their view of right and wrong. If you want to defend this Republic, you will do it with the tools it supplies us with; its laws, its constitution, and as soon as possible, a popular mandate form the ballot box. If you can't accept those conditions, then the Resistance has no business fighting with you."

Dodonna quietly kept her gaze for a few moments, but then nodded and turned to input commands into the office's terminal , "Then by the emergency COG powers intrusted to me as the ranking military official, I hereby confirm former senator Leia Organa as the only civilian representative in reach capable of legally assuming the Supreme Chancellery of the Galactic Republic until the Senate can confirm the appointment or elect a replacement."

"…you were testing me," realized Leia as the underlying logic of the admiral's words dawned on her.

"When the institutions of democracy collapse and the will of the people is inaccessible to those who lay claim to its leadership, all that remains are the Galactic Constitution, the law, and ultimately the personal character of the leader. The greatest Jedi hero of my time held that authority in trust, and he betrayed us... I apologise for the deception, but I had to know what type of person you were before I could take that risk."

"But I am not even a serving senator! How could I possibly claim the right rule the Republic!" protested Leia.

"I am acting in the name of my government, and it gave me the legal authority to recognize the remaining civilian representative so long they were previously elected to public office in the event all serving senators suitable for the position were dead. You served in my Republic's rebranded senate, and you are therefore eligible according to the COG protocol."

Leia snorted, she didn't think a paranoid four-thousand-year-old protocol would convince a current court of law, but the Old Republic was infamous for its tendency to keep archaic even potentially dangerous laws on the books for millennia. The Clone Wars emergency powers act was made possible by legislation dating to the more recent Jedi-Mandalorian War permitting fast-tracked alterations to the Galactic Constitution in times of crisis that hadn't been fully repealed. This COG protocol could even still be technically legal, lying dormant and buried somewhere in the Senate's holonet archive, but could she personally accept such a convoluted stich up as her justification to seize power?

"First off, we don't use the position of Supreme Chancellor anymore because of the excessive powers accumulated into that office. I will accept the role of temporary First Senator subject to all its checks and balances of the position under the understanding that I'm keeping the seat warm for Mon Mothma if we can reach her or for whoever is elected once the senate is restored. My temporary assumption of power will also be subject to legal review and prosecution if the courts consider it illegal."

The admiral shrugged her shoulders, "you can call your role anything you like, but for the sake of my computer system's sanity; please identify yourself as the supreme chancellor when you access it, you won't receive full access any other way."

Leia chuckled, but stopped when a sudden strong feeling of fear tugged on her consciousness. "I sense fear, someone's in danger, here on this ship!"

The admiral's communication device ringed before she could ask what Leia meant, "Ma'am! The hyperdrive is accelerating! Its power output is off the charts! I don't believe this, we've arrived back at the unknown system… hold on, I'm detecting weapons fire in the prison brig and an unauthorised launch of a droid drop ship from hanger bay 1."

"Send the marines over to engineering to find out what the hell is going on down there, secure the brig, and overwrite the dropship's autonomous programming, I'm on my way to the bridge," said the admiral, withdrawing a blaster pistol from her holster.

* * *

 **Crew Deck - Ship's Brig**

"Can you believe that ol' Bantha! She wouldn't let her go! Oh, we'll show her!"

"Mission, hold on, where are we going?" asked Rey, noting the Twi'lek was leading her into a section of the ship she wasn't familiar with.

Mission grinned mischievously, "Oh, nowhere, but I hear the ship is almost out of Tarisian Ale, sucks to be on guard duty while the flyboys gobble it up, right?" she said, taking out a bottle from her satchel.

The sign up ahead told Rey exactly what her new friend would not, "Mission… I know you are trying to help me, but, really? Breaking into the prison brig? With a bribe?"

"I'm not gonna bribe anyone, just making some new friends!"

The door to the brig opened, revealing the slumped bodies of the two guards assigned to this area and a familiar droid standing between them.

"Little H?! What's up with the guards and why the hell are you silver?" asked Mission, causing Rey to flinch a little at her choice of priorities.

"Statement: While this unit cannot fathom why its predecessor hasn't disintegrated the blue meat-bag organic for its choice of designation, it is relieved to be present to ensure this threatening linguistic strand is eliminated before it can besmirch the HK company's reputation. Removing the primary target's oxygen supply will have to suffice, for now."

With those words said, the droid fired off a grenade from a hand-mounted launcher that Rey only barely managed to capture and then push back with the force, but the ordinance exploded into smoke rather than bang and shrapnel.

A slight movement in the force tugged on Rey's consciousness, "get down!" she shouted at Mission and pulled her to the ground behind the desk of one of the dead soldiers. Several laser blasts sliced through the smoke scorching the wall in the spots were their bodies had been mere moments earlier.

"Giddy Excitement: Ohh! Another Jedi! My targeting array is bursting with anticipation at the chance to defeat your famed statistically improbable good fortune!"

A jet of fire spread out from the smoke and scotched the desk which quickly showed signs of breaking and bursting at heat the automated fire suppression system couldn't overcome. Rey cursed, even if she had the lightsabre with her, how was she supposed to deflect a flamethrower? To make matters worse, the door behind them closed and locked itself, most likely obeying the assassin droid's remote commands since the command terminal for this area was now burning alongside the desk.

"Rey! Hold on to me!" said Mission, tossing the bottle over the table as a distraction and then activated her stealth field generator, though it only just managed to obscure them thanks to their small body sizes. They emerged from the burning entrance of the room on the other side of the brig close to the cells, but the moment their feet stepped in the growing puddle of water produced by the firefighting system, an adhesive grenade almost pinned them to the impact area of a plasma grenade that followed it.

"Any weapons on you?" asked Rey, as they took cover in an empty cell.

"Just a holdout blaster, but if he's anything like our HK, it won't do shit against his armour."

The sound of a moving motor disturbed their conversation, but the cell room door stuttered and then ceased movement before it could fully close.

"Agitated Statement: It appears I have vastly overestimated the capabilities of this ship; not only isn't its hyperdrive powerful enough to initiate the jump, I can't even seal the cell to asphyxiate you. No matter, I will simply have to blast you to death."

A surge of electrical energy stuttered from the droid's chassis causing it to deactivate.

"You underestimate the power of a Jedi droid," said the Jedi called Bastila between panting breaths, emerging from the damaged door of her formally oxygen depraved cell.

The droid's yellow optical sensors flickered and then flared back to life, "Correction: this unit is designed to survive a Jedi induced systems overload."

The droid fired off its flamethrower at Bastila who was somehow able to hold the flames at bay with some form of force shield though Rey could see she couldn't do anything else while so engaged. Didn't the Jedi have a lightsabre before her arrest, where was it now?

"Bastila's lightsabre is somewhere in the office! Can you distract the droid while I get it?"

Mission replied by shooting at the droid's optical sensors distracting them long enough for Rey to slip out of the cell, closely followed by mission who had to jump to evade the incoming grenade intended to shred her.

Rey's eyes sought out the bodies of the two guards and noticed the lightsabre strapped to one of their belts, but before she could move, a cable shot out from the droid's left arm and tied itself to her hands as the right hand continued its fiery offensive against the faltering Bastila.

No matter how much Rey struggled, she couldn't make the cable budge, "Mission! Grab that Lightsabre! It's the only weapon that will cut through this thing!"

Mission got up from the floor and rushed to the office, taking the lightsabre off the belt. The droid meanwhile readjusted its arm to fire off a grenade at Rey, a motion that proved tricky to execute while the arm was projecting the cable without also harming itself.

"Annoyed statement: Please stop your fretting! It is denying me a clean shot!"

"Toss it!" shouted Rey, realizing Mission wouldn't have time to get back.

The weapon surged past answering the slight motions of her fingers as these sent ripples through of the Force. A final push from her right thumb-activated the two red coloured blades in a double front pitchfork like configuration that quickly cut through the cord. Rey then took a hold of the weapon with her free hands and slashed off droid's grenade launching arm.

"Hey, watch it!" cried Mission, joining Rey's side to shoot the droid point-blank when the lightsabre straightened into a double blade; its rear end almost cutting her head off.

Blood pumped into Rey's cheeks at the thought of the near-deadly cockup. she readapted her posture to suit staff rather than single hilt combat and renewed her attacks against the droid, who while he managed to evade them, was forced in doing so to turn its flamethrower away from Bastila and fire it at Rey. She ducked under the flames and slashed at its armour while Bastila exploited the respite to smack the droid against the wall with a powerful whirlwind.

"Analysis: Grenade launcher disabled, armour plating damaged, combat odds negative. Plan A compromised, proceeding to contingency plan B."

An explosive decompression suddenly surged through the brig. For a moment, Rey truly thought it would be the end, but a strange bubble quickly enveloped her body, giving it stability and trapping in some of the escaping air while deflecting the various debris. Bastila stood at the epicentre of the bubble keeping it in place with both arms stretched out to either side, hands and fingers convulsing at the strain of holding so much power. The droid meanwhile sneaked out of area through the impact hole onto the hammerhead's exterior.

With sight no longer hampered by the rush of air and debris, Rey could see the cause of the decompression; a ship smashed through the hull though it was more or less intact, most likely even built for ramming, and was now in the process of deploying a company of droids from its reinforced cargo bay; none of which looked friendly.

"Are you trained to wield double-bladed lightsabre? I can't do it while I am maintaining this shield," said Bastila.

Rey shook her head, "no, but I'm trained to fight with a staff, does that help?"

"Yes, for combat movement and stance, but not for duelling or deflection." She closed her eyes, and when they opened, Rey felt the Force warp her body in a reddish aura and was shocked to see the incoming blaster bolts she couldn't deflect bounce harmlessly away.

"I can't maintain this much protection for very long. Mission, the blast door is too strong for a lightsabre to cut through, try and slice or crack it open while we keep those droids off you."

"On it!"

Rey surged forwards and cut through the nearest droid, but the sheer numbers kept her on the defensive; currently her weakest lightsabre skill.

" _The energy shield won't last for much longer, you have to take the offensive!"_ said a voice in Rey's head clearly not her own.

"Bastila, is that you? How are you speaking to me like that!?" she asked between attacks.

" _Be quiet! Focus on the lightsabre and empty your mind. I will guide your defence while you destroy those droids!"_

Rey did as the more experienced Jedi ordered and gazed on in morbid curiosity as a foreign mind took control of her hands and executed deflection after deflection, some of which sent the energy bolt right back at the droids! In a few seconds, their numbers fell, reducing the volume of fire to something Rey could handle. She felt motor control return to her as Bastila's mind withdrew and proceeded to destroy most of the remaining droids.

"I've got it!" said Mission as the door opened, sucking out the air from the hallway.

The three women rushed out of the brig and managed to slip past the closing blast doors as these sealed away the breached section. Rey, surprised she was still alive, saw the shield created by Bastila fade and the Jedi lean against the wall on the edge of exhaustion.

"Do you need a hand?" she offered but froze when yellow eyes looked at her with pure loathing and felt a tremor trying to peer the lightsabre away from her grasp through the Force. A moment later, the Jedi blinked, the tugging stopped, and the yellow receded to grey; hatred gave into despair. Bastila nodded, accepting Rey's offer of assistance, but refused to meet her gaze as she did so.

As the group left the area, with Bastila leaning against the other two for support, Rey wondered how one Jedi was able to command so much power?

* * *

 **Reactor Level - Fuel Line**

Sparks danced around the maintenance hatch, and after a few moments, these ceased. Several loud impacts hit the metal one after another, until with the third the hatch exploded outwards in a rush of vacuum. A damaged grey coated droid entered the area moving against the intense current of escaping air until the ship's automated containment systems corrected the breach by deploying an emergency bulkhead the droid quickly skirting past as it sealed shut.

HK-50 strode past the fuel line until it found a maintenance terminal. Though not normally connected to the security systems, the HK unit soon rerouted some of this levels turrets and bulkheads forming a series of obstacles that while insufficient to prevent Republic reinforcements from arriving would at least buy time. His only option now was to overload the hyperdrive and kill the entire crew, even if it meant his own self-termination.

HK-50 passed multiple bodies of engineers and marines sent to regain control over the hyperdrive as it neared its destination. "Artistic Appreciation: The meatbag-organics predictably marched to their deaths; convenient, but pitiful."

Once it reached the hyperdrive control room, all that was present were the deactivated body of the obsolete unit and several horribly burned organics who had fallen before the reconfigured caf machine reconfigured to dispense the boiling hot beverage through the fire suppression systems. Satisfied that all was well, the droid turned to access the hyperdrive, but a purple security barrier suddenly appeared around it before it could access the system.

"Irritated Statement: I thought I disabled those pesky containment countermeasures," said the HK unit, but it was of no consequence; it could access the system remotely from the engine terminal, though it would take somewhat longer to bypass the safety measures.

"Smug Statement: You will find that access to the hyperdrive has been very recently upgraded to require a voice-printed sequence employing a unique recording of meat-bag screams known only to my vocabulator."

Though the voice was that of the obsolete unit, HK-50's logic subroutines refused to believe it, but just as its allegation of a voice imprint proved correct, so was the droid perfectly upright and functioning. "Statement: this unit witnessed your timely retirement via blaster fire, specifically targeting your governing intelligence, how are you still operational?"

If droids could smirk, the obscenely red coated museum scrapheap would have been grinning from sensor to sensor. "Statement: while you were busy delivering your tiresome exposition, this unit initiated a comparative analysis of our construction, and made the unsettling discovery that we are not only structurally alike, but also constructed from the same part types, to the extent that our systems recognize them as our own."

HK-50 pondered the meaning of such a development and reviewed its operation logs, searching for anomalous readings. "Analysis: My targeting solution veered off several millimetres to the left to avoid a precision strike as a friendly-fire countermeasure, an automatic system feature not normally communicated to my governing intelligence. Even so, my attack should have been enough to at least cut-off the power circuitry to your motivator."

"Pretentious Boasting: This unit, 'obsolete' as it may be in your estimation, is equipped with greater system redundancy then your shoddy design specifications. My auto-repair systems redirected power to my motivator through a secondary power distribution circuitry."

"Unimpressed Tactical Assessment: I cannot destroy you, but vice versa, you cannot destroy me, and therefore, there is nothing stopping this unit from overloading the power supply of the containment field." HK-50 turned to work on the containment field, hurrying up the pace as the Republic's counteroffensive overcame its defences.

"Query: I heard the dying screams of the meat-bags while my auto-repair systems were engaged but my optical systems hadn't yet returned to full function. Do you by any chance possess a security recording of the event? It would be most gratifying for my memory banks to play the sound in sequence with their lip movement."

"Statement: This unit had to overload the cameras of this level to prevent the Republic from observing its actions. The trap remains operational, however, and this unit will be pleased to review its work and share it with a fellow assassin droid." Pausing as it cut though the energy conduit's maintenance box.

"Aloof Dismissal: Oh, there is no need; the trap might overheat our systems and I do not feel the need to observe the work of your unrefined assassination protocols."

HK-50 was nearly finished and decided to humour the obsolete unit. "Proud Statement: Oh, but I insist, your chassis managed to survive the trap's initial deployment, and I assure you that my own is just as structurally sound as yours. Computer, make me a caf, two sugars."

The hot liquid started to pour out of the fire suppression system as expected, amidst a sharp increase of fuel fumes registering on its sensors that was unexpected. The automated filtering systems immediately set to work to vent out the dangerous build-up of gasses, but not quickly enough to offset it immediately.

"Unnecessary Understatement: As a meatbag-organic would say, I have a bad feeling about this…"

"Beepeeeep! Dupopowapo!" screamed a T3 unit from the engine room's entrance.

"Agitated Statement: What do you mean you've reconfigured the fuel lines? I told you not to tell me how you were going to boobytrap the trap so that it would not be registered by my self-preservation programming forcing me to prevent it from occurring!"

"DwooooooWoooo!"

"Concerned Statement: What is the trash compactor saying? Did you trick me into this?! But how? Unless… you purposely didn't know the plan so you couldn't comment on it in the knowledge that even if you opposed the deployment of the boobytrapped trap, I would still go on with it out of the excessive pride programmed into my personality matrix. No matter, I will simply escape and overload the reactor instead!"

"Bwooo! Todidodododido!" said the droid, firing off an electric discharge at HK-50, unable to retaliate in time with most of its weapon systems destroyed or disabled. The self-preservation programming forced HK-47 to aim its weapon at the utility droid, but he quickly relaxed once it realized its counterpart had only been hit by a disabling beam.

"Statement: Oh, I see. T3M4, you have outdone yourself. My self-preservation protocols state that since I cannot rescue the unit from the predicted explosion in time, I am free to dispense with it as I would with a limb if its sacrifice preserves my primary functions."

The two droids quickly got out of the room, shutting the blast door behind, moments before HK-50's surroundings burst into flames.

\- Warning! System overheat detected. Assassination protocols client confidentiality overwritten, sending operational data record to client and HK company headquarters… transmission complete.

ERROR…systems failing master.

[Czerka Parent Company response:] message received, reimbursing client…ERROR, processing… unit identified as obsolete HK-50-unit, anomaly detected, forwarding report to Knight 1…

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur - Last Edited on the 20th of February 2020:** I've altered the HK scene at the end of this chapter to reflect a part of Kotor 2 canon I'd forgotten that prevents HK units from engaging in hostilities. I've also written out the two-week time travel plot bit because it was stupid and contradicted later chapters. The log entries originally present have been replaced by a final showdown between HK-47 and HK-50 that I think is more entertaining if rather contrived in its final execution in a one-up secret agent sort of way.

 **Answers to Reviews:**

 **Majdnoon:** I hope the promised Dodonna - Leia conversation proves enjoyable.

 **edboy4926:** Thank you, I am currently focusing all my writing time on this story and plan on continuing to do so until it is complete.

 **Ad Terrorem:** I agree with your assessment. An unfortunate tendency of rather chunky paragraph and dialogue spacing wormed itself into my writing habits recently. I have since edited all the chapters to break up the text, but if there are still lingering problems, I will be delighted to hear of them. I've already made alterations to this story based on the Rise of Skywalker trailers starting with this chapter and plan to continue this trend.

If anyone is up to it, I invite you all to partake in a game to try and spot that little titbit from one of the Rise of Skywalker trailers in this chapter.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	9. Chapter 8: I am not Going to Choke You

**Crait System - Planetary Surface**

"Come on, come on, come on!" muttered Sleer, growing pale as her ejector seat came closer and closer to the ground without any sign of slowing its rate of decent.

She frantically searched for the manual deployment switch against the wind, removing the Stormtrooper helmet to get a better field of view, but the spinning motion created by the TIE fighter's fall made it very difficult to focus her sight let alone reach the appropriate button.

With seconds to spare, Sleer managed to press it, and then press it again, but nothing happened.

"Bloody TIE/fo death traps!" She screamed and hit the button with the helmet, once, twice, three times; each strike drawing on ever more desperate anger until the helm shattered.

A sudden great shove of energy pushed Sleer to the edge of her seat as the repulsor roared into action, quickly followed by its white parachute. The ejector seat immediately decelerated, but not fast enough for a soft landing.

Sleer detached the harness and fell out of the broken machine, rolling away from the salty soil before it could get in her eyes leaving a trail of trickling blood behind her. She took a moment to let her body recover from the ordeal of the crash, using the respite to reach out for the emergency transponder held inside the stormtrooper armour and activate it.

Shoving the blaster rifle into the ground, Sleer used it to push herself to her feet, but the pain emanating from the left leg made it clear it had been at least twisted by the impact. She bit down the pain and managed to get up using the good foot to support her body's weight.

The buzz of a familiar energy field caused her to instinctively reach out for the rifle and fire. The blaster bolt was deflected harmlessly away from the stranger who retaliated with his outstretched hand, summing the weapon away from Sleer's grasp. She quickly unbuckled an EC-17 blaster, but before she could pull the trigger, the stranger fired the stolen blaster rifle and shot the holdout weapon out of her hand.

Sleer managed to evade the stranger's lightsabre with a roll to the left but lost her balance when the injured limb collapsed under the excess weight. Before she could even think of what she was doing, she somehow managed to push herself off the ground into something approaching a melee combat stance armed with the Jedi weapon she'd found in the cave.

A red sabre flashed into existence just in time to intercept the similar weapon wielded by the stranger. The two of them remained locked in a struggle for dominance for a few seconds, both surprised by this development, until Sleer's lightsabre slowly waned and died, the damage sustained during its use as a decoy and the subsequent cave-in proving too great.

Despite Sleer's helpless state, the stranger didn't move; his sword hanged above her just a few centimetres away from the neck but didn't show any sign of going for the kill.

"What are you waiting for? Finish it!" shouted Sleer, closing her eyes to avoid the sight of the imminent decapitation. The blow did not come, daring to peek at the sight of death, she saw the stranger retracting his blade.

"Why?"

The stranger sighed, bringing up his vizor to reveal two hazel eyes starting at her seemingly lost in some memory, "No one deserves execution, no matter what their crimes."

His right hand came dropped the rifle just in time to push Sleer back to the ground with his mysterious magic before she could try to grab his deactivated weapon.

"Naughty! Who gave you permission to interrupt my monologue? Only the good guys get to do that!" said the stranger, his previously distracted gaze now full of mirth, but also, with an intensity warning his prisoner not to push her luck again.

"I am with the good guys!" protested Sleer to which the stranger snorted.

"Come on, really? With a solid white armour colour scheme like that you look like that Upper Taris nutter's idea of his human purity brigade! No way would the good guys dress like that. Even an army of clones would at least put some patterns to tell themselves apart!"

Sleer was flabbergasted, first, this guy was trying to kill her and now he was complaining about First Order fashion? The loss of adrenaline made Sleer aware of the pain of the wounds she'd suffered during the crash and the cave in with a groan as her mind grew delirious.

"Oh dear, you've managed to hurt yourself and I'm shit at Jedi healing. You're lucky I have some medpacks left over from my showdown with Malak. I don't know why I even bothered to pack them considering Sith troopers were walking around the Star Forge with bags of the stuff like a legion of pinatas. Just, try not to gorge my eyes out while I'm administering it."

Sleer was in too much pain to even lift a finger against him, and even if she wasn't, what hope did she have against those freaky Jedi magics? She lost consciousness while the stranger attended to her wounds, waking up a few times to the discomfort of being carried away.

When she regained her senses sometime later, Sleer noted the rocky surroundings and quickly concluded she was once again in a cave hideout. A groan to her left got her attention, but when she tried to move, she discovered her hands were bound by scavenged spacecraft electrical wiring readapted as restraints while her leg was still too badly mauled to walk on. A short struggle with the restraints revealed that they were fused together and that any attempt to cut through them would be a long and difficult process.

"Easy does it general Weasel; you hit your head pretty damn hard when we crashed," said the stranger kneeling by General Hux's unconscious body as he muttered in his sleep.

He took out an injector of some kind and promptly used it on the general, causing Sleer to scoff. "He won't tell you anything, no matter what you shove in him. All First Order officers are trained to resist interrogation should they fail to carry out the last command."

"Kill yourselves you mean, huh, figures I'd end up with a tough crowd. Should I be worried about you using the wires of your restraints to slit your wrists or something? I don't fancy the idea of having to clean off your blood again. At any rate, relax, I don't know what this Order of yours is and I don't much care for its secrets. All I gave him was a simple pain killer."

Sleer eyed the stranger with suspicion, why would he help them out like this? Weren't they enemies? The thought of using the wires to cut herself had come to mind, and while that would be the action the Order would expect, she didn't want to carry it out.

The stranger kneeled by her leg and administrated a rather odd locking medpack. Sleer didn't feel much from that area and guessed he'd also given her a painkiller. She immediately grew apprehensive at the thought, for the Resistance was said to mix a truth serum into its pain killers in one of its interrogation techniques meant to win over information from captured prisoners by pretending to care for them.

"So, what's your name?" asked the Stranger.

Sleer rolled her eyes, causing the stranger to chuckle, "ah, don't give me that, this isn't an interrogation. How about for every question I ask you, you get to ask one of me? Fair?"

It was true, she was curious about her capturer, and it wasn't as if she was privy to that much confidential information. Knowing her enemy would be vital to any escape attempt.

"Lieutenant Commander, SL-5157, First Order," replied Sleer.

The stranger frowned, "rank, serial number, and affiliation? In my day, people would at also say their names, well, everyone but the Mandeloians, when we caught them."

"SL-5157 is my designation, the only one given to me for as long as I can remember."

"Well, that's just…sad. When I learned Mandalorian, it was hilarious to figure out why half the prisoner manifest was Usen'ye. Meetra thought it was it was the name of some legendary war hero and used it in our propaganda. The Mandalorians weren't impressed."

Against her better judgment, Sleer's lips twitched. Perhaps it was the drugs, but the thought of Mandalorians registering under that word was so… she couldn't help but find it amusing.

"Gar jorhaa'ir Mando?" asked the Stranger, curious about Sleer's reaction.

She shook her head, "a bit, from SF training, as I was too young to remember it when I was conscripted. My records say I was ascended to the Order from a planet called Ordo; a small outer-rim backwater that hasn't been part of Mandalorian space since the Great Purge. When the First Order came, we were the tribute demanded for our planet's security."

The stranger paused, once again bringing a distant look to his face, "huh, so much has changed, Canderous will be pissed about that, and I doubt I've heard the half of it. Anyway, don't you have a nickname? I would go mad if I had to say 51…what's it all day."

Sleer wondered if she should tell him what he asked but figured that it hardly constituted a state secret that captain Peavey disliked the numeral system and preferred to give nicknames to worthy members of his crew. "You may call me Sleer if you must."

"Ugh, no; that's just as bad as Usen'ye but not nearly as funny."

The stranger seemed to think it over and then grinned, "I know! I will call you Meetra! I don't know who that is or what it means, but it's a nice enough name, don't you think?"

"You may call me whatever you like Stranger," said Sleer, not all too impressed with her latest designation but not concerned enough to protest it.

The stranger laughed, "Oh please Meetra, don't call me that, Carth would never let me live it down. Damned Hut wouldn't accept Darth Revan as my arena alias because he thought it might offend the Sith. It was probably wise of him considering how things turned out."

The stranger paused in a frown, but quickly replaced it with a cheeky grin Sleer thought incredibly irritating, even if it did improve his face's… architectural appeal.

"Call me Dane, Dane Avery, that's, well, the name given to be for as long as I can remember, though I did have another I don't much are for." The stranger extended his hand for a handshake but quickly stopped and used it to rub his neck instead, embarrassed at the realization that his prisoner could hardly shake his hand while she was bound up like that.

A sudden explosion caught the stranger off-guard and was quickly followed by a second, this time close enough to cause dust and brittle rock to fall from the cave's ceiling.

"The mines are going off… how did they find us?" wondered the stranger raising his left hand to count off its fingers. "I mopped the blood and footprints, found a cave with a low profile, laid out a minefield, and kept radio silence. What did I miss?"

He looked at the remaining small finger, his eyes darting between the one designated 'radio' and the unnamed problem with a frown and then turned to Sleer with a questioning look, "you have a homing beacon."

"Lieutenant Commander, SL-51…"

"Of course, she has a homing beacon, everyone has a homing beacon, but did you stop to strip away the armour and look for it? Nooo, you had to be the good guy that respects a gal's modesty, you had to care for her wounds like you had all the time in the galaxy." muttered the stranger as he sneaked his way up to the small well-hidden cave entrance, continuing his monologue with what sounded to Sleer like 'no wonder past-me turned to the dark side'.

A blaster shot hit the wall dangerously close to Sleer's body the moment Dane raised the blaster into the sunlight to have a look from its scope. "Darn it, snipers have the entrance sighted, and there isn't enough room for me to swing the lightsabre and deflect them," he said and looked to any part of the cave wall he might be able to pry open for an alternative exit.

"Resistance fugitive, this is admiral Peavey, we have you surrounded; surrender your weapons and hostages at once and your life will be spared."

"Whatever you're selling, we're not buying!" replied Dane.

"Very well, as you probably cannot see what we are doing while you are busy cowering away from my sniper team, I will describe our actions for your benefit; we have gathered up the spare prisoners of your so-called Republic not needed for questioning to speed up this affair. To satisfy you that this is true, I will let one of them speak over the voice amplifier."

The change in speakers caused the voice amplifier to produce a sharp momentary noise, causing Sleer to flinch and wish she could cover her ears until it caught the snippets of a conversation between her superior and one of the prisoners.

"…You want what? I refuse to go along with this game, I am general Hux, and officer in the Republic army and I demand that you treat my men and I as prisoners of…"

A shot rang out, blurring the voice amplifier once again. "I've wanted to put down that crazed lunatic ever since we fished him out his escape pod. To think he would keep up this idiotic ruse to his death, is that what passes for bravado in the New Republic? For every five minutes you remain at arms and in possession of your hostages, I will kill one prisoner. There are now three remaining."

Dane didn't waste any time; he immediately threw out the blaster from the cave and got to work undoing Sleer's binds, to which she could only flinch as his rough handywork dug painful scratches across her arms.

"That bastard thinks he has power over me?! Oh, we will see about that! Get up," he snapped, still holding the lightsabre; his earlier humour all but gone.

Sleer obeyed and the two of them emerged from the cave, the snipers taking the thrown rifle as a sign of surrender for they would not have hesitated to fire to kill had it been only Sleer standing in the way between them and their target.

The scene in front of them was impressive; several companies of First Order troopers accompanied by light walkers surrounded the cave. Overhead air support of at least a half-dozen fighters passed them by, while Peavey stood at the head of the host with a few selected commandos. Even a Jedi would be hard pressed to fight them all, so what was the stranger after in this affair? Sleer doubted he intended to just give up, would he?

"You think you can bargain your way out of this with my life? The admiral knows his duty and I am an expendable asset. You haven't got a…"

The stranger kicked her mangled leg, causing her to fall with a cry against the pain the dissipating pain killers could not conceal. The retaliatory shots from the snipers were quickly redirected by his lightsabre.

"I am warning you, if you kill my officer, all three prisoners will die!" said Peavey, commanding the assembled troopers to train their weapons on the prisoners as well as Dane.

"You have fifty seconds," replied Dane, pressing his blade against Sleer's neck.

"What?"

"Forty-seven seconds until your ultimatum expires and you must kill one of the prisoners. When that happens, your officer will die. If your snipers try to distract me for you to shoot at while I'm busy deflecting them, your officer will die. If you do not release your prisoners and give them a communications device and a month's worth of rations, your officer will die."

"She is a member of the First Order; she is willing and able to die for our…"

Dane raised his lightsabre away from her head but then delivered a quick strike at her hand, cutting it cleanly off the rest of the limb and proceeded to speak between her cries. "Then what's stopping you? Why play out this charade? You could have brought down an orbital bombardment to kill us and even if you have orders to take me alive, you have more than enough men with you to catch me, even if it means she dies."

The admiral's hand gripped his blaster and shook with anger, but he would not fire. Why? Why wouldn't he fire? What possible reason could he have to want her alive?

" _He cares for you, as I did_ , _Ord'ika,"_ said a voice from a distant memory. In her mind, though it struggled for coherency against the pain, Sleer could make out the face of an old warrior, someone she knew, long ago. But how was this possible? She never knew anyone! no one in the order knew their families for they were all taken as babes!

"You want her alive, don't you? But don't let me stop you, kill your prisoners and be content! If she means that little to you, if you lot mean so little to each other after fighting, laughing, crying and dying together as comrades in arms, then you truly are what you claim to be; a petty unprincipled man with just as little regard to his friends as to his enemies."

A silence passed between them after which Sleer remembered what was said more as a dream then as reality, "will you surrender to my custody if I do as you ask?" asked Peavey, to which the stranger replied with a firm nod.

"Then you have my word as an officer of the Imperial Navy that no harm will come to the prisoners," said Peavey, holstering his pistol, an act quickly mirrored almost immediately by his soldiers, a little too quickly in Sleer's view.

Though the expressions of the stormtroopers remained hidden behind their helmets, she could somehow feel the relief emanating from them. It was silly, why should they care? After all this time of being told that they were expendable, that their brothers were expendable, could such weakness remain?

" _The admiral cares for her… will someone care for me?"_

" _Maybe Niner and I won't have to hide what we truly mean to each other."_

" _Then good old Slash didn't die for nothing, our bonds do have meaning."_

Sleer was convinced the pain was causing her to lose her mind as it was assaulted again and again by yet another unspoken voice from the crowd. What was happening? Where was all this coming from? Since when did troopers have names for each other? Since when did they love each other beyond mere flights of fancy? Since when did they die for each other's survival rather than a clear military objective?

A louder voice that seemed to come from all directions smashed into her skull like a battering ram canon, " _The fundamentals of sentient existence are our bonds with each other. The one who can observe these chains of emotion and trace them back to their roots through the echoes they leave in the force can rule over the hearts and minds of the people."_

"Release the prisoners, bring them a comms unit and whatever supplies you can scrounge up from the shuttles. You will not kill the prisoners once out of sight of witnesses, as required by the standard procedure, but leave them in peace. Nothing of this incident will be recounted to anyone outside your units, including superior officers no matter what rank they are."

 _Bastila's battle meditation is an unsubtle act of coercion on the weak-minded, strong in its potential to influence the will of entire armies and the course of battles, but ultimately temporary. It was Meetra's talent with force bonds that proved the enduring structure; a fly trap willingly entered, but impossible to leave. She merely lacked the vision to use it._

The stormtroopers obeyed Peavey's orders and dispersed. Dane allowed one of their number to take his lightsabre, while another lead him off. Several medics rushed to retrieve General Pryde from the cave and to attend Sleer wounds, and then lifted both of them onto hover stretchers as the prisoners passed them by towards the cave where they would wait out the First Order in the hope they would be rescued by a passing ship before their food ran out.

 _I was not so blind; I forged a crusade out of a broken army and led it through the trials of warfare. I burned entire planets to harden the hearts of both Jedi and soldiers to do what had to be done until only my will remained, and in its triumph, I held the galaxy by its throat!_

As Sleer's stretcher passed by Dane and her mind once again grew delirious she could not see Dane's lips move, she could somehow hear him, and knew that this voice was not his own, but of another; a shadow of something greater that was slowly returning to the fold.

 _You who were blind to the force, awaken, and know the future is always in motion._

On the bloodied salty ground, the dead general Hux was left behind for his troops to bury while inside the cave the unconscious general Hux vanished from time and memory.

* * *

 **Star Destroyer Harbinger - Officer's Quarters D27**

The door opened, bringing Kylo Ren out of his meditation. Admiral Peavey and General Pryde stood before him, uncertain, afraid, but too proud to show it.

"Report."

The two officers looked at each other, clearly respecting their mutual imperial pasts while they silently debated which one of them should speak first.

Finally, general Pryde took a step forward into a bow he clearly loathed to preform but did so regardless of those feelings, "Sir, it was my folly that led to my capture. It placed the First Order in an intolerable hostage situation, and for that, I take full responsibly."

"Are your wounds healed general?" asked Ren, surprising both officers, who thought any such benevolence beneath the scope of normally volatile young Force sensitive's concern.

Oh, he'd been angry before, but then that stranger defeated him in what barely constituted a duel. The defeat proved to be an excellent source of motivation to do better, at least when it didn't follow an act of patricide or a direct challenge by his asshole of an uncle.

"Yes, supreme leader," replied the general, though his twitching and the bandages revealed the lie for what it was.

"Then you are fit to resume your duties, leave us."

The general seemed flabbergasted, "You…are not going to choke me?"

"I am not going to choke you."

Seriously, those old imperials needed to get it into their skulls, just because he choked Hux, once, didn't mean he was the second coming of Darth Vader. Wait a minute, who was Hux? He was a general, but was he? The Force whispered of a rabid cur in command of the First Order, but his memory recalled no such man.

General Pryde nodded and stood up and saluted to take his leave, but before he left the room, Ren spoke again, "I want a report on the performance of every officer in the fleet during the recent engagement, highlighting any failures or successes worthy of my notice."

The general silently accepted the assignment and walked to the doorway.

"You need not put your name on this list, general."

Kylo waited for it until the moment the general crossed the freehold still in earshot.

"…for the moment."

The door closed, leaving only Peavey and Kylo Ren in the office. The admiral seemed to have a glint of something approaching respect in his eyes, but as a former imperial, he obviously couldn't show it outright, they were nothing if not predictably unemotive.

"Sir, may I repeat my earlier proposal that you take the captain's quarters? I would find these quarters perfectly satisfactory."

Indeed, the average officer's quarters were only made distinct from the enlisted soldiers in that they were a singular private room and not a row of bunks. They nonetheless shared the utilitarian nature of everything the First Order built.

Ren shook his head, "I disagree, admiral, in a crisis, you are needed on the bridge, I am not. The captain's quarters are closest to the command apparatus of this ship; it is logical that you make use of them. Are the additions I requested to these quarters complete?"

"Yes sir, a long-distance holographic communicator has been added and is ready for use."

"And the prisoner?"

The general's feelings betrayed him; he held the beginning of admiration for the prisoner. Ren found this curious, what could make such a man appeal to an imperial hardliner?

"Secure in the brig, readapted to accommodate only him according to your suggested alterations…if I may ask, why did you request a melee training facility in there?"

"You may not, " snapped Ren, displaying a portion of his famed…impulsiveness, but then centred his thoughts; the galaxy was depending him to restore peace and order, it would not do to be childish, "did you find my lightsabre among his possessions?"

Peavey produced two hilts much of the same design, though Ren could easily identify the burned-out husk of his lightsabre, "It appears prisoner made use of your weapon as a diversion and that it is now inoperable."

"No matter, I will use the prisoner's weapon until I can repair my own. Do you know if Hux had any next of kin?" he asked, grabbing both weapons.

The admiral seemed startled, "Sir… I know of no such officer in our ranks, do you wish me to check our records?"

Ren shook his head, "That won't be necessary. Admiral, prepare your fleet for battle and set your course for the Corellian system; we're done wasting our time chasing the petty remnants of the Rebellion, it is time for us to resume our liberation of the Core Worlds."

The admiral saluted and left, while Kylo Ren turned to the holographic communicator and tapped in the secret codes required to summon his former comrades in arms. Five holographic shapes appeared before him, armoured and cloaked their faces hidden by their helmets, with one figure still not fully loaded into the system.

"Where is knight 2?" asked Ren, noting that one of their number was absent.

One of the knights chucked, "Come on Kylo, you know Caedus, he's ignored you ever since you killed his…uh, how was your old man related to him again?" asked their youngest recruit known in these meetings as Knight 6; a carry on from the time they communicated in secret via aliases to avert Skywalker's suspicion in case he listened in on them.

Kylo chose to ignore the question, it was no secret that they were distantly related through the post-industrial train wreck that was the Solo family. Even the very name, much like everything else about Ben's father, was fake. At least his cousin didn't carry that legacy.

"My agents report he's heading for Corellia to join in its defence, along with many other ships responding to the planet's general mobilization. We should attack before they have a chance to regroup, the Supreme Leader must be appraised of the urgency. "

He could only chuckle at knight 5's enforced formality, obscured by his…oh right.

"Yea yea Kylo, laugh while you can, it's just one more thing I'll have to punch him for while I kiss him. I swear if we get him back, I'll never let him out of the Hapes Cluster ever again!"

"So… which one of us is gonna tell the Supreme Leader one of the knights has gone Solo?" said Knight 6, pun obviously intended.

"That won't be necessary, the Supreme Leader is dead." said the shapeless figure as it took form. Like the others assembled it was clocked, but unlike them, it was hooded and its face was concealed by a mask rather than a helmet that while similar in passing to the front of Kylo's destroyed helmet was distinctive for its red lines and faded grey as opposed to the others black and white colour schemes.

The assembled knights with the exclusion of the speaker and Ren gasped, "Is it true?!" asked knight 6, among them the one most convinced of Snoke's power.

"It is true, Skywalker's new apprentice killed him," replied Kylo, though he was looking at the one who'd prompted the question rather than the one who asked it.

How did he know? Did he suspect him of being behind it? Knights 1 served Snoke for years even before Kylo Ren's ascension as master of their order, if anyone would contest the leadership, he would.

The other knights also turned to knight 1, who seemed impassive, until the electronic voice modulator behind the mask merely repeated what it had said, "The supreme leader is dead."

On cue, all the knights bowed before Kylo and repeated, "long live the supreme leader!"

So, he would have knight 1's support, after all, that simplified matters.

"How did Mas…Skywalker's apprentice kill Snoke?"

"The Supreme Leader thought he could turn her, and for a moment, it seemed she would but instead, she played for time and stabbed our master in the back," said Kylo, knowing that he was playing a dangerous game misleading the knights like this, so some truth had to enter the conversation before they grew suspicious.

"In other words, she isn't quite so powerful in the force as to stand up to our leader directly, but devious and strong-minded enough to hide her intent form him," mulled knight 6, but then turned away from the holoprojector for a moment.

He soon returned, "A ship matching the profile of a Hammerhead corvette has just come out of hyperspace in my system, only the Resistance still makes use of that type of vessel, but they should be easy enough to disable with the Temple's disruptor."

"It isn't the Resistance; we have a new enemy; a displaced fleet of Old Republic ships from an as of yet undetermined point of origin a few thousand years before the rise of the Empire."

The other knights looked at Kylo as if he was mad, but Knight 1 once again came to his defence, "It is true, I have just received a report from a droid almost 4,000 years overdue for decommissioning detailing a failed assassination attempt against a Jedi."

"Then we are challenged by at least three Jedi; Skywalker, his apprentice, and this ancient Jedi, if not more. We must act quickly before they have a chance to challenge us."

Kylo didn't want to reveal the truth of Skywalker death he'd felt shortly after their duel just yet; all the knights feared the old Jedi Master, and it could prove a useful tool to assure their loyalty so long as the threat of the unknown remained on their minds.

"The Jedi and Skywalker's apprentice may be onboard that ship. I have no news of Skywalker; rumours of the map to him proved to be a dead end."

"What I do not understand is how we haven't felt Snoke's death or all these new Jedi," said Knight 4, a question Kylo also wondered about but was convenient to his interests.

Fortunately, knight 1 had an answer straight out of his wannabe Sith lexicon, "Something is obstructing our sight, and whatever it is, it's very strong in the Dark Side of the Force. We may have more than Jedi to contend with."

"In the meantime, what should I do about that ship?" asked knight 6.

Kylo wanted nothing more than to pull down that ship, but what if they survived the crash? Old ships meant less automation, less automation more crew; it could be carrying hundreds of troopers for all they knew and the secluded outpost had nowhere near that many.

"Do not engage, your outpost doesn't have enough troopers to guarantee success, and if they capture the Temple that disruptor would make them untouchable. Let them believe the system is abandoned and safe while Knight 4 leads the home fleet to intercept."

Knights 4 and 6 saluted and signed off.

The supreme leader now hesitated, they still had plenty to discuss with the remaining knights on the war effort, but he had to confirm his suspicions, for if they were correct, they had a much bigger problem on their hands.

"There's something else, do any of you remember general Hux? I'm not exactly sure as to the how or why, but he's disappeared."

"You mean deserted? kidnapped? Wait…who?"

"Exactly, I mean he never existed."

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur:** I realize the plot device regarding Hux was one I previously altered, but I feel that this is the correct place to use it for two reasons;

First, I prefer to work with imperial type characters not to mention I had nothing in mind for Hux other than to constantly try to undermine Ren, something that would've gotten him killed sooner rather than later.

Second, there are certain things I would like to change in the First Order such as the way its Stormtroopers are trained and short of merely ignoring the canonical information, I decided to change it by destroying the Hux line largely responsible for it.

In a word, time travel represents my way of dealing with contradictions between canon, legends, and my own handwork. I won't abuse it (I hope), but I do want to set it up as a thing early on in such a way that is easier to understand than my last muddled attempt to do it so that it is a part of the narrative by the time I use it again.

For those wondering why I am setting up my vision of the Knights of Ren, one that will obviously be contradicted by Rise of Skywalker, the reason is that I want to have a fair bit of my vision of these things posted before the film hits. Though I will adapt ROS material to this story, it became AU the moment the Old Republic Fleet turned up and will remain so.

 **Edit - 22nd of February 2020:** Changed Sleer's comment about Ordo not being a part of Mandalorian space to reference the Great Purge in The Mandalorian rather than the Jedi War referenced in Rebels that probably isn't all that relevant after all this time.

 **Answers to Reviews:**

 **stars90:** I am glad that scene was enjoyable because I didn't know if I should include. I am also happy to say Bastila and Rey are going to be sticking together for a while.

 **Guest 1:** You are quite right, the Republic has no authority over the Jedi, but the problem is that there are no Jedi to argue that point, at least not officially. Rey doesn't exactly have anyone to commission her, and Vander is still floating around in a kolto tank. The admiral knows she doesn't really have the authority to hold Bastila which is why she is grudgingly willing to concede her over to Leia if Vander doesn't recover.

 **Guest 2:** Leia and Dodonna aren't primary POVs of this story, but they are necessary to give the Republic/Resistance the structure I need to weave in the broader conflict around. I will be using them when I need them for this role, but other characters such as Revan, Bastila, Rey, and others are my mains for most of it. I completely understand why you'd want a story centred on Revan and co in the future, but from my view, that doesn't leave much room for the sequel cast and many other things.

Revan has his own story, which is central to what I have in mind, but it is a story that much like his journey in Sith Lords (Kotor 2) has no place in it for his friends. The Ebon Hawk Crew similarly has their own stories to tell, and even though they will be working together and with the sequel cast, they will each get their own individual plot in it, Bastila, Canderous, Mission, HK, Zaalbar, T3M4, even Carth! (and that took some thinking let me tell you)

There is another tidbit from Rise of Skywalker in this chapter, perhaps two, though they are a bit subtle and not necessarily lifted from the trailers.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	10. Chapter 9: The Sea of Darkness

**Lehon (Unknown) System - Rakata Prime -**

"Rey! Wake up, we're almost there!" said Fin, bringing her out of the nightmare.

"Are you alright?" he asked, handing over a water-ration canister.

"I am fine, it was just a bad dream," she mumbled, covering for her lack of conviction by taking a swig from the canister. It had seemed so real, the voices, the mask, and the oppressive all-pervasive darkness. What did it mean?

"Will Bastila be OK?" she asked, changing both the subject and the direction of her thoughts once she was finished drinking. She found a reason to smile; the surreal experience of eating and drinking military rations again after all that happened to her since leaving Jakku. She never thought something could be worse than Unkar Plutt's fair, but the Old Republic fleet managed it somehow.

"She just needs some rest. It takes more than an assassin droid to keep her down! No offence HK…" replied Mission, diplomatically avoiding its nickname.

"Statement: The Fool Ithorian on Tatooine must have copied my schematics backwards and sold them to a juvenile meat-bag. That unit was a substandard knockoff with no artistic finesse and a hideously malfunctioning vocabulator." replied HK. Though his head was now distinguished by a blaster scorch mark, he didn't seem to suffer any noticeable ill effects.

Mission laughed, "You're that ticked off he got the first shot?"

"Unrelated Observation: I understand Twi'leks are allergic to certain types of Juma Juice."

The shuttle rattled slightly as it entered the planet's atmosphere. Poe emerged from the cockpit where he'd been acting as co-pilot to familiarize himself with the controls of Old Republic ships. "Everyone, listen up. whatever stunt that crazy droid tried to pull pushed the ship's relative position in space ahead of the rest of the fleet by several days. If the First Order figures out where we've escaped to, they can get here before the rest of the fleet and lay a trap for it in this system. Our only chance is that ancient disruptor."

"I don't get it Poe; how would a 4,000-year-old disruptor be worth the trouble after all this time?" asked Fin.

"GC Onasi said that this disruptor worked for 20,000 years without a maintenance cycle bach in his time period, so what's another 4,000 to tech as stubborn as that? What's important is that it's incredibly powerful tech that can disable any vessel. If we get it, we'll create a safe haven to regroup and rebuild the Resistance where the First Order won't be able to touch us."

A loud alarm followed by flashing red lights suddenly lit up the passenger cabin causing BB-8 to whistle in worry. "You said it, Bebe, I have a bad feeling about this," said Rey.

"Missiles incoming! Brace for impact!" warned Commander Yara Sakai moments before one of the missiles hit the shuttle. Despite its technical obsolescence, Yara and Poe managed to keep the ship flying long enough for Yara to bring it down in a controlled crash landing.

"I'm defiantly flying one of those things on the way back," said Rey as she unbuckled her safety harness and moved to join the others near the escape hatch.

"Trust me you don't, the only saving graces of the ministry class are its hull integrity and armour plating. It handles like a slab of durasteel strapped to an ion engine," replied Yara.

Poe got out of the shuttle last, "What are your fighters playing at? They were supposed to cover our approach! We're lucky nobody got hurt!"

"My fighter reserve is busy sunbathing on the Megalodon's hanger deck waiting for FNG's who are 4,000 years late! We're doing our best Poe, but we can't be everywhere."

A squadron of Republic fighters passed overhead, too fast for the rockets to successfully target one and make a clean getaway from retaliatory fire from its compatriots for the missile launchers to risk it. A lone Chela class fighter landed close to their crash zone with its temporary pilot evicting the cockpit for the gunner position below.

"The mission is yours, Captain Dameron. Do me a favour and don't die; all the starfighters in the galaxy aren't worth a cred without pilots," said Yara, hopping into the fighter to join the Megalodon shrunken fighter wing up in the air.

Rey was surprised to notice Poe looked as if he'd argue that point and felt a great deal of conflict and self-doubt from him, but also a grim determination not to let anyone down. "Alright people, let's get some cover in the jungle and check what we're up against."

The team crept slowly into the tropical jungle, thankful for the last rays of daylight for their guidance through the thick tree cover. Poe paused ahead of the formation at his droid's request and took out a pair of Macrobinoculars to take a closer look.

"…Yea, those are stormtroopers alright, at least a platoon of them. Looks like the First Order beat us to this place. Fin, report this to the Megalodon, call in some fire support and the reinforcements; this isn't going to be cake run mission after all."

"Copy that Poe" he answered, calculating the firing solution and communicating the orders to the mothership. Moments later, the temple's perimeter exploded in green turbolaser fire.

Three more shuttles emerged from the sky exploiting the suppressive fire of the Megalodon and the fighter cover to avoid missile locks. Once the shuttles landed, orbital support ceased, and a company of Republic marines charged the barricades. Canderous Ordo led the attack as temporary marines' commander, begrudgingly appointed by the admiral on Carth's recommendation after the loss of his predecessor to the assassin droid.

"Come on, let's give them a hand!" shouted Poe leading their charge using the jungle to outflank the enemy barricade and cover their approach from return fire.

Rey quickly took point, activating the red lightsabre staff she'd borrowed off Bastila when Dodonna insisted she wouldn't let the Jedi keep it within reach. The blade awkwardly retracted from its double front configuration and snapped into its staff form, with Rey doing her best to copy what she'd seen and felt Bastila do to deflect blaster rounds while she'd possessed her body's motor control.

Their group and two fireteams of the Republic's complement soon managed to break through the first barricade, damaged by the Megalodon's fire, but the enemy quickly and professionally regrouped behind a second one, covering their retreat with a scathing punishment. The company took cover behind the taken barricade, with Rey reconfiguring the lightsabre to double front to avoid running through any of her allies by accident.

Canderous surged forwards with his jet pack, bringing his blaster canon against the First Order's flank. Several enemy troopers fell amidst cries among their ranks warning each other about 'the flying rebel', but most of his hits didn't seem to be doing much damage. A First Order blaster canon quickly retaliated, forcing Canderous to retreat to their line.

"Our blasters aren't penetrating their armour!" observed the Mandalorian, joining the team behind the barricade. Rey tried to stand up but dived back for the cover of the barricade as the blaster canon homed in on her position. She deactivated the lightsabre and unholstered a blaster pistol but couldn't get a clear shot while the gunner kept her head down.

A rifle barked from the other side of the barricade hitting the trooper with a clean headshot. Rey looked to the right and noticed HK-47 was using one of the Resistance's rifles as he sniped one stormtrooper after another using a pile of still burning enemy corpses for cover.

With the blaster canon temporarily neutralized, Canderous quickly took off and landed near the discarded weapon and used it to dispatch First Order stormtroopers from their rear.

"They're in disarray! Come on, let's finish this!" said Poe, quickly followed by the team in a mad dash towards the temple, but Rey paused, and looked to the sky; something was coming.

"TIES!" she shouted with moments to spare, and sure enough, several TIE fighters broke through the clouds and strafed the advancing column of republic troops just as it dispersed to the sides. The enemy fighters were soon forced to break off the attack as the Republic's air cover engaged them, but that didn't bring Rey much relief; TIES usually meant…

Poe held up his Macrobinoculars for a closer look, "Star Destroyer, make that two, entering orbit. We'd better takeover that disruptor quickly or the Megaladon is toast! Fin, take a squad and man those barricades, we're gonna have company."

Rey joined the others in their run up the steps to the temple, but after a moment, she noticed that only she, BB-8, and Mission seemed to be nearing its closed obsidian doors.

"Guys, what's the hold-up?" asked Mission looking back at the others.

"Can't move past this step…" said Poe, seemingly plastered over an invisible wall; a plight shared by the rest of the team with one exception.

"Observation: I recall this temple having some sort of selective defence barrier though I am uncertain as to its criteria." Commented HK-47 as he walked past Poe without any trouble.

"Addendum: Droids do not seem to be affected, and since the meat-bags past this point is a Human and a Twi'lek, species can't be the criteria…"

A fireteam of republic soldiers soon also encountered the barrier and couldn't pass. "What the hell?" exclaimed their sergeant as she tried to move forwards unsuccessfully.

"Observation: Another theory disproven. Whatever the criteria may be, it does not appear to have a preference for any particular sexuality."

Canderous snapped them back into the urgency of the situation by blasting apart a wayward TIE fighter trying to shoot them up again.

"We'll handle things from here. You three, get that utility droid to the disruptor's control consul, wipe the previous settings, and then download the Rep fleet's specs into the system. Those behemoths won't be able to maintain orbit let alone land if we get that disruptor on our side. The rest of you, grab the enemy's blasters and missile launchers…"

Rey didn't hear any more as she and Mission rushed towards the doorway followed by the droids. The door was made of stone and was sealed with no obvious means to open it. The rims of the archway above it had long since collapsed through the rubble had been moved to the sides of the temple rather than obstructing the entry.

"Any idea how we get this thing open?" asked Rey.

"Nope, only Dane, Juhani, and Jolee went into the temple. Dane said there was some local ritual involved, but it sounds like something he'd make up to mess with me, I mean, it can't be as simple as saying a load of mumbo jumbo and then 'open sesame', can it?" said Mission, waving her hand dramatically at the doorway to prove her point.

A strange rumbling immediately followed, and the earth trembled as the stone slabs retracted to the sides, revealing the dark interior ahead.

"Kriff! That actually worked?!" said Mission, giving her hand a probing look and then turned to rummage through her backpack in search for a flashlight.

"Statement: The door most likely has a motion sensor as it is extremely unlikely 'open sesame' would be the password."

Rey laughed, "are you sure you aren't a Jedi Mission?"

"Hello? It's me we're talking about! I hanged out in their Academy and got told off for giving out cookies to the kids. Ugh, my flashlight's out of charge, do have anything on you?"

Rey wordlessly handed over the blue lightsabre she'd received from Dane since blue was much better at alternating for a torch than red. She didn't feel in any way impaired by the loss, feeling more at ease with the lightsabre staff because of its similarity to her weapon of choice as a scavenger.

"Cool! Now, which way does the laser come out? I don't want to impale myself!"

Rey rolled her eyes at the reminder of her recent cockup, "With the Skywalker lightsabre you could make that excuse, but the sword guard on this thing is a dead giveaway."

Mission grinned pressing the activation button but seemed almost ready to shove the lightsabre away in shock when it sprang to life, "Wow, holding one of these things in my hands up close and personal sure is something. Guess this is as Jedi as I'll ever be."

With a light to guide their way past the entrance chamber, the group headed into the dark corridor ahead.

"You know, I can't see any tech in here and that door was more primitive than an undercity sewer hatch, so maybe, just maybe, Dane changed the password when he was the Dark Lord? I mean, he did program Little-H to say meat-bag to rile Malak up. Think of how annoyed he'd be to say open sesame each time he wanted to get into his evil layer?"

Dane was a Dark Lord? What was that supposed to mean? Nothing good by the sound of it. Rey wanted to pry, but now was not the time for this conversation.

"Statement: Your supposition is factually incorrect in that it was I who coined the term meat-bag, though my master certainly encouraged its continued use. Your general theoretical analysis is however highly plausible. I calculate 90% chance that your theory is correct, which also happens to be the chance of us encountering battle droids as the primary protectors of the interior considering the exclusion field on the disruptor's exterior…"

"Now you tell us!?" exclaimed Mission, deactivating the lightsabre to take hold of the ion rifle strapped to her backpack as the rumble of something rolling on the stone floor came closer and closer to them. Four ball-like droids emerged from the two hallways and transformed into three-legged forms armed with twin lasers and an energy shield, though one of them was shot and destroyed by HK before it could complete its deployment.

The hail of fire started almost before Rey had the opportunity to activate Bastila's lightsabre but even with it, it was not enough; the sheer rate of fire of the droids was overwhelming.

"I can't handle them all in one go!" shouted Rey using an ancient statue for cover, levitating away its head before it could fall on her as one of the blasts knocked it off.

The head managed to pass through the droid's energy shield but did no serious damage. Perhaps objects moving at low speed could get passed that shield? The statue would be enough to destroy one of them, but it would leave her exposed to the other two.

"Let's split up! Me and HK will try to draw some of them off!"

Mission activated her stealth field generator and emerged out of cover to fire off several rounds from point-blank range from the droid's rear. While the weapon was ineffective against the droid's energy shields, its ion discharge did impede their weapons energy supply long enough for the Twi'lek and the droid to fire-off several more rounds and grenades before running down one of the corridors. Two of the droids took the bait and followed them.

With only one droid facing off against her, Rey felt confident enough to push the statue at the droid, knocking off one of its blasters and the shield generator in the process. A quick slash on its now exposed right delivered the killing blow.

Rey took a few moments to inspect at her opponent, "that must be one of those old separatist destroyer droids from the legends, but what are they doing here?"

These thoughts were interrupted by distressed beeping; the corridor Mission and HK escaped through was closing. Rey tried to run past the door, but it was closing too fast and the force wouldn't keep it from closing no matter how hard she tried. "There's no helping it then, we'll have to take the other way and hope they can handle themselves."

She kept the lightsabre activated as a source of light and a ready defence, though the red aura barely served to light up a few feet of ground in front of her. While Rey was careful to choose her steps, BB-8 advanced optics didn't have the same trouble and the droid rushed forwards.

"Careful Bebe, there might be traps ahead," cautioned Rey, but the droid logged off her worries with bravado that even from her brief exchanges with his owner clearly came from Poe. She smiled and decided to trust that the droid's sensors would keep it out of trouble.

A sudden electrical discharge surged from the floor in the droid's path, "BEBE!" she shouted and rushed to his side. When she reached the droid, her worse fears seemed to be realized for no sign of life emanated from his droid eye. Once the electrical discharge dispersed, the light slowly returned until the droid's head propped up over its body with a panicked wail.

"Are you alright?" asked Rey, crouching by BB-8 to straighten out his antenna damaged during the fall. The droid responded to the affirmative; the trap, now rendered inert and harmless, was most likely designed to kill organics since it didn't produce any lasting damage to BB-8's systems according to his diagnostic.

"Do you understand why I didn't want you rushing ahead? I can't keep up with so little light to see the path."

The droid beeped in startled realization and activated its inbuilt flashlight which doubled as a hologram projector, apologizing for not realizing the lightsabre hadn't been enough.

Rey patted the droid's head, "No damage done Bebe, but it would have helped if you had reminded us you can do that. It's easy to forget you are there sometimes little guy, though I should know better than to underestimate a droid."

"You don't know how right you are." said a voice filling the corridor with an ominous distorted inclination which reminded Rey of Kylo Ren, and yet, didn't sound like him. She readied her lightsabre but saw no source for the comment.

The staff almost hit Rey squarely in the head with only the feeling of intense energy giving her enough warning to duck. The weapon buzzed with a purple looking discharge almost as intimidating as the droid holding it and its skull looking face. Rey was able to intercept the next attack, but the speed of the droid's movements kept her on the defensive.

A second droid attacked her exposed flank delivering a brush of electric shock that sent Rey crushing to the ground. The shock was still present in her nervous system as she rolled away from the thrusting attacks of the droids, and though she regained the fallen lightsabre, it wouldn't activate. She evaded the next series of attacks by the skin of her teeth and stared helplessly at the weapon, why wouldn't it work?

"That's a Jedi Civil War era sabrestaff, built with only one shared emitter matrix for both blades. It can't be activated in staff form; both blades must line up for the emitter to ignite." said the voice, as Rey took another hit.

Rey didn't trust the unlikely source of wisdom, but she did as it suggested, and the blade did indeed return to working order. Instead of returning it to its staff configuration, Rey chose to keep the blades at double front, using their pitchfork like shape to catch one of the staffs and snap off one of its electric projectors between them.

The second droid pressed its attack, giving its counterpart the opportunity to retreat and readapt its stance to thrusting its staff like a spear. The second droid was now prepared to guard against the possibility of Rey trying to trap its weapon, but as they clashed, Rey brought one blade on top of the other and pushed the one above the droid's defences forwards until it punctured the droid's head off like a holoball in a game of pool.

The droid continued fighting even without the head, but its movements became erratic and uncontrolled, a weakness even its ally couldn't cover for with its thrusting attacks. Within moments, she scored several hits on its limbs and the droid fell to pieces.

The fight with the second droid was harder, for every time Rey tried to come close, it thrust its weapon and put her back on the defensive. Impatient to end this battle quickly, Rey summoned the fallen droid's staff with the force and guided it to pierce the second droid through its chassis.

With both enemies destroyed, BB-8 emerged from its hiding place inside one of the rooms close to the hallway and reactivated the light, revealing numerous deactivated droids inside what looked like a workshop of some kind. Rey didn't take any time to inspect it; she was taking too long as it was.

"Why did you help me?" she called out, certain the voice could somehow hear her.

"It wouldn't be fair to expect a scavenger from Jakku to know the correct way to operate an ancient sabre-staff against my magnaguards. Last I checked, there were plenty of imperial wrecks down there, but little older than that. Not even one CIS droid carrier."

This time, the voice was no longer distant but close by and from the lightsabre's light, Rey saw a dark figure sitting in a meditative stance in the chamber up front, close to a stairway she had a feeling led to her goal.

"Bebe, keep back, let me handle this," whispered Rey as the droid wisely turned off its light before it could be seen and went back to the workshop to hide out the battle.

"How do you know me? Where are my friends?"

"Kylo told me all about you Rey of Jakku but that doesn't matter right now. As for your friends; between the Twi'lek's cunning and the destructive artistry of the vintage HK series droid, they are tearing apart my Battle Droid collection. I'd be more worried about my own safety if I were you."

A canister flew at Rey closely followed by discarded droid parts of various shapes and sizes. She barely managed to evade the parts and cleaved through the slower moving canister as it came right for her, which only served to release a gas that burned through her eyes. Unable to see, Rey felt a discharge of energy hit her shoulder, and though it stung, it was underpowered.

"Stop toying with me!" she snarled and tried to charge at the enemy but with her sight still unrecovered, she merely stumbled and fell, hit by several low powered lasers.

"I must say I'm a bit disappointed. Master Skywalker always made it his point to teach us to fight without seeing. Clearly, he hasn't imparted the same lessons to you."

Rey gritted her teeth and tried to get up but fell again at the impact of yet another laser.

 _focus on the energy inherent in the projectiles_

She recalled Dane's advice, calming her emotions and letting her momentary blindness open her sight to the Force as she reached out for the sabre. The next round still hit her, and so did the second, but she managed to deflect the third, while the fourth rebounded at the recon droid responsible for it. She could do it! She could sense the energy inherent not only to the projectiles but to the droids responsible for firing them as well.

Rey reconfigured the lightsabre into its staff form, hitting one of the droids when the weapon extended as it tried to flank her, and then delivered a whirlwind of strikes against the remaining recon droids until they all fell from the air. With this done she opened her eyes, now over the effects of the gas, but fumed at the sight of her still seated opponent.

He seemed to consider her, but Rey couldn't tell his thoughts from behind the silver helmet which covered his face hiding to his eyes behind a dark vizor.

"Not bad. Kylo was right, you might just prove to be a worthy addition to the Knights of Ren in our struggle against the tyranny of the Force," said the warrior, finally rising to his feet holding a sickle-like vibroblade.

"Never!" replied Rey, charging forwards.

The enemy held his weapon at the ready for the impending clash, but in the last moment, he turned his sickle around and pressed a trigger hidden at the base of the blade, firing a projectile from a hollowed point in the weapon's handle. Rey received barely any warning; no energy signature, no clear intent, and couldn't deflect the projectile as it hit her shoulder.

She almost dropped her lightsabre at the pain but managed to move it to her offhand instead and restore it to its double front configuration before the enemy clashed swords with her.

"Don't feel too bad about it; this is a surprise several force sensitive have fallen for in the past."

Rey struggled to keep up with her opponent whose blade didn't seem any worse for wear at its contact with the lightsabre's laser. She could barely use her damaged arm to support her hold over a lightsabre that needed both hands for stability.

"It's actually pretty impressive you're still fighting at all, but you and I know you lost this match the moment I got that shot through. Kylo wants you alive, if I wanted to kill you, I had several chances to do it. Don't throw your life away, surrender."

Rey snarled, and kept on fighting, "Even if you beat me, Bastila will destroy you!"

"Oh, so there really are only two of you; Yourself, Master Skywalker's apprentice, who still has much to learn about how to use a lightsabre, and that Twi'lek who is wise enough not to rely on it at all against my battle droids. Are you getting this Baldy?"

A hologram of a masked figure much like her present enemy appeared from the eye of a salvaged R3 type astromech droid readapted as a communications device. "Ares, I swear, if you call me that one more time, I will personally burn that pretty green hair of yours."

The enemy now identified as Ares sidestepped Rey's weak offensive as she tried to exploit the distraction unsuccessfully and laughed, whether at her or his ally, she couldn't say.

"Yea, yea, keep dreaming Baldy. Anyway, since there are no other Jedi to account for, there's no reason to keep that ship up there. Keep your fleet out of range in case any more of their ships turn up. I'm going to power up the disruptor; be ready to get over here with a ground detachment in case I need help with that Old Republic Jedi and their landing party."

Ares jumped away from their fight towards the exit, "Kylo wants you alive so fighting you serves no further purpose. Your mission to take over the disruptor was obvious to us from the moment you landed, and while the Force always gives its servants a chance to do its will, it has failed you. Don't be sad, for this is a moment of liberation! Your time of servitude to that ancient religion is now over."

BB-8's distressed beeping caught the knight's attention as he was brought into the room by a pair of battle droids. Rey gulped in fear, if she lost BB-8, the resistance and the republic fleet were finished.

She ignored her pain and tried to put all her strength into one last attack to save the droid, but Ares merely pushed her aside with the force exploiting her lack of a free hand to retaliate in kind. This time she remained down, her strength all but spent and the pain proving too much.

"So, this is your droid? Didn't you Resistance types already use a BB series astromech to smuggle Master Skywalker's whereabouts past Kylo? You should really think before using the same plan twice, it makes thwarting you easier."

He then turned to face BB-8, "Hey there little guy, listen, normally I'd memory wipe a droid like you and keep you around in my collection, but that would take too long. I'm really sorry about this."

"NO!" shouted Rey as Ares plunged his blade into BB-8's frame, causing it to sparkle violently until the light drained out of the droid's eye. It was too late, she had been too weak, and now everyone she knew and cared about would die because of her failure.

Her enemy shifted uncomfortably at the sight of her, "If it's any conciliation, the game was rigged from the start. You were going the wrong way; that door leads to the temple's lower level, but the disruptor's controls are on the upper level. Don't blame yourself for what you can't control, that path only leads to even greater suffering."

The sound of several explosions outside alerted both to Mission and HK's imminent arrival. "I hate to leave you here so close to the reliquary and its dark side energies, but that door hasn't budged to anyone since Darth Bane, so it should be safe enough for now."

The Knight left, leaving the two battle droids to guard her as he closed the door behind him. Rey stared absently at the door and the two droids; if only she'd been a little bit faster, better, stronger!

 _Through strength, I gain power…_

Rey turned her head in search of the voice, but her senses led her only to the closed door to the lower level. No, it wouldn't help her; she could barely even take out those two flimsy looking droids, and even if she did, what would be the point? Without the disruptor, the Resistance and the Republic would be defeated, and she was powerless to stop it!

 _Through power, I gain victory…You must crave it. Covet it_ … _._

Victory? How? The voices said nothing, but Rey could feel the dark power locked behind those doors and flinched at the coldness they concealed. She forced herself to look again despite her discomfort; It seemed a longshot, but if there was a chance, she had to take it, no matter the cost.

 _You must seek power above all else…Through victory, my chains are broken._

She slowly stood up, doing her best to ignore the blood running down her open wound which had only worsened during her battle with the knight.

"Hands up Jedi!" said one of the droids, aiming its blaster at her. Rey complied, raising both hands into the air. She gave up trying to ignore the pain, a futile endeavour in her state but instead thought of it as a point of focus for her retribution.

 _With no reservation or hesitation…_

"The Force shall free me."

The lightsabre came into her raised hands passing through one of the droids and destroying it along the way. Rey activated it and collapsed it back into its sabre staff configuration with an ease that felt natural to her. A second later, the other droid was beheaded and destroyed.

The doors to the lower level groaned against the power commanding them to retract, releasing dust and an ancient aroma of decay sealed away for centuries. Rey could hear weapons fire outside; HK and Mission were fighting the knight, but they wouldn't last long if she didn't help them. She tried to command the other door to open so that she could leave and do so, but it would not budge.

 _Only you have the power to save them._

Yes, Rey felt stronger, but she was still too weak; she couldn't even open that door! Besides, with BB-8 destroyed, the Resistance was doomed. All that mattered was that from the ashes of this defeat she would grow strong enough to avenge her friends by destroying Kylo Ren, his knights, and the First Order.

Rey turned her power to the struggling doors to the lower level, lending the power already in tune with them the necessary energy to complete their opening cycle. A silent unwelcoming dark stairway was revealed in front of her. Rey kept the sabre on and used its red aura to navigate the steps down into the depths of the earth, finding in its light clarity and a sense of purpose she hadn't seen before.

The reliquary possessed many strange items; tattered banners long since rotted, ancient texts made incomprehensible by the passage of time and guttered droids of past wars. On a pedestal, Rey found a lightsabre that looked much like Bastila's sabrestaff and touched its activation switch out of curiosity. A blade of golden yellow briefly flickered into life but then fell silent, time having exacted its toll on the internal components of the Jedi weapon.

Rey left the weapon behind. This was no reliquary; it was a tomb full of worthless trinkets long past their time. She'd thought this place would have answers, she was wrong. The darkness had let her astray a third time, but no more.

 _True power can come only to those who embrace the transformation._ Said one of the voices from a small dark pyramid from its secluded position on an altar. Like everything else in this place, it struggled to maintain some level of function over the years as it garbled seemingly random phrases all too often disrupted by its failing power supply. Why had she come here? Her friends needed her! There must be some way to open that door if the Knight could do it.

Just as she was about to turn and leave, another door opened inside the reliquary revealing a cave adorned by a red and black banner that unlike the others was still intact. Upon it was a round symbol which reminded Rey of a TIE fighter yet seemed different, older.

 _Resist it, Rey!_

Rey turned around in search of the familiar voice but saw no one and dismissed it as her imagination. She was beginning to notice a pattern in the real voices; the pyramid's failing hologram and the deeper more sinister voice that didn't seem to have anyone place of origin.

Somehow, without noticing when or how she'd entered the cave. The way back had vanished into the darkness while to her front stood a cliff. Rey came to stand on its edge and looked down towards a familiar gaping chasm that seemed darker than the night.

"I know this place; this is the cliff overlooking the sea where Luke told me about the Force."

 _You went straight to the Dark!_

"Master Skywalker? Are you here?! We need your help, please!" shouted Rey, desperately trying to find the dead Jedi Master but seeing only darkness.

 _It offered something you needed, and you didn't even try to stop yourself!_

Rey stood away from the cliff's edge and the memory, "No, I didn't want power! I only wanted answers!"

A thousand reflections of herself appeared in the void surrounding the cliff, forming a hall of mirror images as seen from the other side of her reflection in Ahch-To's cave.

 _Let me see, let me see, let me see them. My parents, please!_

Two figures came closer and closer behind her until they became one. A lightsabre turned on in a deep red, casting a shadow over the cliff's edge.

"Don't be afraid of who you are," said a familiar feminine voice, but Rey was pushed off the cliff before she could see the face of her attacker.

Rey woke up a moment later. She was laying on on an island all alone in the night with no wind, no ocean, and no stars to ground this location in reality. A discarded mask caught her attention on the sandless beach. The red lines above and under the visor still present over a faded dark grey despite the passage of time normally sheering such colours away.

Rey had a bad feeling about this mask, that if she even touched it, there would be no going back to who she had been before. She didn't want any of this, she got up, and walked away.

…Right into the same mask, its visor now lit up in an ominous red and spoke in the voices of both the hologram and the other presence.

 _Twice you have come to me for answers, twice you have turned away. A third time you have basked in the darkness and the darkness will have its say._

All around her, she could only see the mask, the island lost to the sea of darkness. The mask came ever closer, but no matter how much she tried to turn away from it, it was always there, edging towards her face until it came to rest upon it.

Two sabres of red and yellow clashed, and in a flash of blood and fire, it was over.

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur:** This chapter has proven to be very difficult to write to the point I have no choice but to abandon at least temporarily my usual POV format in favour of individual chapters told by one character. If you as readers voice a preference for this style or for the old one, I will consider changing or keeping to it in future chapters.

In addition, note that the numbers of the Knights of Ren in the previous chapter have been altered to reflect changes in their characters through little else of significance has been altered. Knight 6 is now knight 2, knight 7 is now knight 6, knight 4 is now knight 5, and knight 3 is now knight 4. Though I haven't explicitly said it yet, I will clarify Kylo Ren is Knight 3. Commander Yara Sky has been renamed Yara Sakai because Sky sounds too much like Skywalker.

I know things feel rather bleak in this chapter but please remember this is only the first chapter of a three-part finale for Lost Fleet. the reason I am doing this now is that I am also preparing to use the one-year gap between the two films to write a middle act sequel of my own with my take on the Knights of Ren playing a big part in it.

Last Jedi mostly acts as an addendum to Force Awakens rather than an Empire Strikes Back to New Hope while Rise of Skywalker is clearly a finale. For that reason, I consider the inclusion of a middle act prior to Rise of Skywalker the best way for me to include most of my ideas going into Rise of Skywalker while remaining (mostly) faithful to it at the end.

 **20/02/20 Update:** Wrote out the two-week time travel bit as it was stupid with a simpler spatial distortion. A big thank you to formerAnnie for going over the final part of this chapter I wasn't sure about.

 **Answers to Reviews:**

 **stars90:** I am also curious about the full extent of what I will end up doing with it, but I mostly want to give it its own identity distinct from the Empire. It will take a while to get to that point, but it will feature heavily in the next story of this series.

 **Dyrnwyn1994:** Palpatine is certainly up to no good, as I hope this chapter hints at, but there will be more about it by the third chapter of this finale. Revan will certainly be assuming military authority in a process that will feature heavily in the sequel to this story. Carth has already been promoted to Group Captain and given temporary command of the Megalodon while Canderous is certainly appreciated enough by the Republic for his skills to lead the ground assault force in this chapter. Both characters will have extensive plots involving their home worlds in the sequel to this story, particularly the latter.

 **GinsengH:** The cartoonish elements are probably Last Jedi rubbing off me at the time with humour that doesn't always land, though I think I am getting better at it. Dane, however, is purposely cartoonish for the time being to distinguish the Jedi personality from Darth Revan, the conqueror of the Mandalorians. Since this story takes place right after Kotor 1, those two personas still haven't fully reconnected, though there is growing tension between them.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


	11. Chapter 10 Part A: Revan's Interlude

**Hyperspace - First Order Flagship Harbinger**

The two metal blades clashed at a sharp angle, producing several sparks in the impact as they came at each other again and again. The older warrior gracefully evaded the violent strikes of his opponent, his ever-present smile revealed a distinct lack of effort on his part in the struggle, while the panted breath and the gleaming sweat running down on the younger warrior's face and arms revealed that this experience was not mutual.

"Stop running and fight me!" demanded Kylo Ren, clearly irritated by the obvious differences in skill between them that was not helped by his opponent's carefree attitude.

Dane's grin grew even bigger, "If you don't watch it with the fireworks, you're gonna break that sword."

The black cladded amateur Dark Sider lost his temper at that comment and charged forwards, but in his expectation to meet steel with steel, he was unprepared for the kick that connected with his right leg's kneecap and fell on the floor with a groan.

"Always beware the unexpected strike," said Dane in what approached a sing-along tone as he approached his fallen opponent and offered his hand.

Kylo Ren brushed off his offer and slowly came to his feet with a hiss of pain.

"Again."

Dane sighed, "listen kiddo, I never agreed to train you, but even if I did there are lessons that can't be learned by simply picking up some swords and bashing them together. Your form is wild, and your emotional outbursts make your attacks predictable. If you want to get your ass kicked again, come at me, but don't expect to become better at swordplay for it."

The wannabe predictably didn't listen and came at Dane again, forcing him to intercept the blade with one of his own. The duel wielding warrior quickly alternated between blades as they clashed, evading the strikes when he could and intercepting those he couldn't; electing not to retaliate with attacks of his own. After a few minutes of this exchange, Kylo Ren's worn out blade finally snapped, leaving him defenceless as Dane brought forwards the sharp end of one of his blades to the boy's throat, and briefly contemplated finishing him off.

The distinctive hiss of a lightsabre brought with it a red blade of energy that quickly cut through Dane's unprotected weapons. Knowing he was practically defenceless, Dane paused to gather the Force and projected it onto his opponent, freezing his body in place inside a pink shroud of ancient power.

"Right, I'm calling a penalty; if you want to fight using 'my' lightsabre, the least you could do is provide me with a vibroblade or some other weapon reinforced with cortosis weave that can stand up to it. I said I won't fight you and I stand by that, but we should at least lay some ground rules for these none-duels; no lightsabres and no Force powers, starting…now."

With that said, Dane released the wannabe from the stasis field, causing him to flounder headfirst to the floor, letting slip the lightsabre that quickly rolled away out of the arena; at least until it suddenly stopped, reversed course, and rolled back towards Dane's feet.

"That was no ordinary Stasis Field; I couldn't move my eyes or even a single muscle. How did you do it? Tell me!" He shouted, but Dane kept his silence, busy trying to make the lightsabre get to him without Ren noticing.

A coms device beeped on Ren's belt, "Yes, what is it?!" he barked, clearly still angry at Dane's uncooperativeness, but there was more to it than that. When Dane stretched his powers outwards, he could also feel anger directed at the girl from the shuttle and…himself.

"Get out of my head!" shouted Ren, snapping the Force into motion towards Dane. Over-dependence on emotions in a fight was generally a handicap, but in instances like this, it could also provide a nasty surprise, thought Dane, as he gazed upon the broken pieces of his vizor from his lovely view from the cold metal floor.

"Uh… Supreme Leader, you, you, asked to be informed when we were close to the Hosnian System. Our ETA is two standard hours." said the fearful voice of an orderly as Dane got up.

Ren closed his eyes, somewhat impressing Dane with what seemed to be a genuine attempt to calm himself. "Very well, inform General Pryde and Admiral Peavey to meet me on the bridge and order Backdraft and my new wingmen to report to our ready room."

"You Force push like an Agricorps dropout," muttered Dane as he massaged his jaw, moving his fingers and with them the Force to probe his objective.

Ren turned and faced him down with a glare burning with a cold fury. "When I return, you will teach me," he said with finality and brought up his access card to open the doorway.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" asked Dane, holding up his lightsabre. The kid paused by the doorway and summoned the weapon out of Dane's hand, its fingers twitching as the weapon was ripped away from them. The 'Supreme Leader' strapped the weapon to his belt and then left the brig, the door automatically sealing and locking itself behind him.

Dane waited for a few moments, and then brought up his left hand, and with it, the access card caught between his fingers.

* * *

 **Note of the Amateur:**

A bit on the short end for me, but this scene was both necessary for the next chapter but also too out of place in it from a POV consistency perspective to be included in it. Rather than sit, I've decided to release it as an interlude prior to my next update, which should happen in one or two weeks, along with edits to prior chapters clarifications on what and why has been edited, and my current plans for the story.

The only big plot change is that stupid two-week time travel event introduced in the last chapter that contradicted with Kylo Ren's conversation with his knights in the one before it has been slightly altered to represent a sudden displacement in space rather than time. Time travel will be a thing in this story, but I have a track record of doing it badly when I am not careful, and this is one of those instances.

Other than that, I've overhauled the final HK-50 confrontation from a lazy message log to a real scene considering my violation of the HK self-preservation code preventing HK's from destroying each other. That edit is now present in chapter 7, but it isn't necessary to read it to understand future chapters and is thus purely optional. There may be smaller edits here and there, but they aren't that important to the plot.

The three-part finale plan has fallen in the wayside because some of my plot ideas for the sequel work better here then they do in there. The current plan is to complete the Lehon storyline, but also write the Battle of Corellia, each in three parts alternating with one another. For that reason, most of what I wrote for the next chapter was delayed to the one after that and it's taking me a bit longer to finish this one from scratch.

All that means is that there are still six chapters to this story not including an epilogue. The good news is that you'll be seeing more of Revan, Kylo Ren, as well as cameos for characters that will become more relevant to the sequel. The bad news is that all my concrete plans for that sequel will be realized here, meaning it will take a while to put it together once I finish this instalment.

Hopefully, I'll be done with it by the end of March as I have a fair bit written ahead for some of these chapters, but uni-related stuff is getting in the way.

 **Answers to Reviews:**

 **Majdnoon:** I was rather concerned this chapter felt like it was repeating Crait all over again, but I'm happy with it and I'm glad someone else is too. Knights of Ren are indeed based on Kreia as I wanted to give their order something more interesting to work with than merely a Dark Sider cult or a glorified company of stormtroopers. Mission is one of my favourite characters from Kotor, but I think she was underused; this is how I compensate.

 **noobie53:** If by this sort of idea, you mean a Kotor-Sequel crossover, then I am looking forward to reading what you come up with. The Sequels quietly pinch quite a few ideas off Kotor but lack a distinguishing identity from the OT. A Kotor crossover not only has ground to build on in the ST but can also enrich the overall story with its characters and lore.

The inside joke is how do the traumas of being beaten in all these underhanded ways would influence an imperial officer who was on the receiving end of Rouge 1's Hammerhead? Its probably a theme I will be playing with often, though there is also a point here about the differences in tech (corvette rather than cruiser) and how it is interpreted by this time period.

 **Lawrence HBain:** I will be the first to say that I was royally ticked off about the way Luke was killed in Last Jedi, but I never considered keeping him alive because it was a fait accompli from the point of view of this story premise. Could I have reworked it to include him? Yes, but in hindsight, I am glad I didn't because it would have very easily overloaded the narrative I have in mind with a character that's so much bigger than any role I could possibly find for him.

I killed off Jolee and Juhani for similar reasons in that they, as surviving Jedi, proved too disruptive; but no one's ever truly gone. Luke and others will have cameos, and I can say for sure that he will play a much bigger role as a Force Ghost than in ROS, particularly involving Kylo Ren as the Banquo to his Macbeth. I know it isn't nearly enough to make up for his treatment in Last Jedi, but there is only so much I can do in a story post-TLJ that isn't about him.

Thank you for your patronage,

 ** _A Lover of Nature._**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film, and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.


End file.
